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BUT, HEARING THE STEPS OE SOME ONE OVERHEAD, 1 
CALLED OUT.’' 






The Seaboard Parish 


A Sequel to “Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood ” 


BY 

GEORGE MACDONALD, LL.D. 
u 

Author of 

“ Robert Falconer, ” “ Dealings with the Fairies,” 
“At the Back of the North Wind,” etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 


PHILADELPHIA : 

DAVID McKAY, PUBLISHER, 

1022 Market Street. 


4 




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• - * 


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TO 

JAMES POWELL, Esq., 

HIS GRATEFUL AND LOVING 

SON-IN-LAW 

DEDICATES THIS BOOK. 


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CONTENTS. 


CHAT. 

I. HOMILETIC, . , 

II. CONSTANCE’S BIRTHDAY, . 

III. THE SICK CHAMBER, ^ 

IV. A SUNDAY EVENING* « 

V. MY DREAM, . e 

VI. THE NEW BABY, . . 

VII. ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING} 

VIII. THEODORA’S DOOM, , 

IX. A SPRING CHAPTER, . 

X. AN IMPORTANT LETTER, • 

XI. I ONNIE’S DREAM, . . 

XII. "-HE JOURNEY, 

XIII. WHAT WE DID WHEN WE ARRIVED, 

XIV. MORE ABOUT KILKHAVEN, , 

XV. THE OLD CHURCH, . , 

xvi. Connie’s watch-tower, , 

XVIL MY FIRST SERMON IN THE SEABOARD PARISH, 
JCVIII. ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING, 

XIX. NICEBOOTS, . , 

XX. THE BLACKSMITH, • • 

XXI. THE LIFE-BOAT, • . 


PAG* 

I 

8 

29 

46 

60 

64 

70 

8 * 

97 

no 

120 

132 

'45 

<59 

168 

188 

208 

223 

236 

255 

201 

m 


XJCIL MR PERCIVAL1, 


riil 


CONTENT*. 


CHAP. 

XXIII. THE SHADOW OF DEATH, 

• 

• 

• 

PAG* 

289 

XXIV. AT THE FARM, . , 

0 

• 

• 

310 

XXV. THE KEEVE, . • 

• 

• 

• 

319 

XXVI. THE WALK TO CHURCH, • 

• 

• 

• 

333 

XXVII. THE OLD CASTLE, . « 

• 

• 

• 

343 

XXVIII. JOE AND HIS TROUBLE, . 

♦ 

• 

• 

3^ 

XXIX. A SMALL ADVENTURE, • 

• 

• 

• 

3 8 9 

XXX. THE HARVEST, . . 

• 

• 

• 

407 

XXXI. A WALK WITH MY WIFE, 

♦ 

• 

• 

423 

XXXII. OUR LAST SHORE-DINNER, 

• 

• 

• 

436 

XXXIIL A PASTORAL VISIT, . 

• 

• 

• 

405 

XXXIV. THE ART OF N4TURR. * 

• 

• 

• 

476 

XXXV. THE SORE SPOT, „ , 

o 

• 

• 

485 

XXXVI. THE GATHERING STORM, 

• 

4 

• 

50 i 

XXXVII. THE GA1 HEXED STORM* 0 

4 


• 

5M 

KXXVIIL THE SHIPWRECK, * 

t 

• 

• 

533 

XXXIX. THE FUNERAL, • , 

• 

• 

• 

55** 

XL. THE SEKMON, , , 

0 

• 

• 

573 

XLI. CHANGED PLANS, , 

• 

0 

• 

592 

XLII. THE STUDIO, • • 

• 

• 

• 

603 

KUIL HOME AGAIN. . m 

• 

• 

• 

*19 


CHAPTER I. 


HOMILETIC. 



EAR FRIENDS, — I am beginning a new book 
like an old sermon; but, as you know, I have 
been so accustomed to preach all my life, 
that whatever I say or write will more or 
less take the shape of a sermon ; and if you had not by 
this time learned at least to bear with my oddities, you 
would not have wanted any more of my teaching. And 
indeed, I did not think you would want any more. I 
thought I had bidden you farewell. But I am seated 
once again at my writing-table, to write for you — with a 
strange feeling, however, that I am in the heart of some 
curious, rather awful acoustic contrivance, by means of 
which the words which I have a habit of whispering over 
to myself as I write them, are heard aloud by multitudes 
of people whom I cannot see or hear. I will favour the 
fancy that, by a sense of your presence, I may speak the 
more truly, as man to man. 



2 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


But let me, for a moment, suppose that I am your 
grandfather, and that you have all come to beg for a 
story; and that, therefore, as usually happens in 
such cases, I am sitting with a puzzted face, indicating 
a more puzzled mind. I know that there are a great 
many stories in the holes and corners of my brain; 
indeed, here is one, there is one, peeping out at me 
like a rabbit ; but alas ! like a rabbit, showing me 
almost at the same instant the tail-end of it, and 
vanishing with a contemptuous thud of its hind feet 
on the ground. For I must have suitable regard to 
the desires of my children. It is a fine thing to be 
able to give people what they want, if at the same 
time you can give them what you want. To give 
people what they want, would sometimes be to give 
them only dirt and poison. To give them what you 
want, might be to set before them something of 
wh-ich they could not eat a mouthful. What both 
you and I want, I am willing to think, is a dish of 
good wholesome venison. Now I suppose my children 
around me are neither young enough nor old enough 
to care about a fairy tale. So that will not do. What 
they want is, I believe, something that I know about — 
that has happened to myself. Well, I confess, that is 
the kind of thing I like best to hear anybody talk to 
me about Let any one tell me something that has 
happened to himself, especially if he will give me a 
peep into how his heart took it, as it sat in its own little 
room with the closed door, and that person will, so tell- 
ing, absorb my attention : he has something true and 


HOMILETIC. 


3 


genuine and valuable to communicate. They are mostly 
old people that can do so. Not that young people have 
nothing happen to them, but that only when they grow 
old, are they able to see things right, to disentangle con- 
fusions, and judge righteous judgment Things which 
at the time appeared insignificant or wearisome, then 
give out the light that was in them, show their own 
truth, interest, and influence : they are far enough off to 
be seen. It is not when we are nearest to anything that 
we know best what it is. How I should like to write a 
story for old people ! The young are always having 
stories written for them. Why should not the old people 
come in for a share ? A story without a young person in it 
at all ! Nobody under fifty admitted ! It could hardly 
be a fairy tale, could it? Or a love story either? I am 
not so sure about that. The worst of it would be, how- 
ever, that hardly a young person would read it. Now 
we old people would not like that. We can read young 
people’s books, and enjoy them : they would not try to 
read old men’s books or old women’s books; they 
would be so sure of their being dry. My dear old 
brothers and sisters, we know better, do we not ? We 
have nice old jokes, with no end of fun in them ; only 
they cannot see the fun. We have strange tales, that 
we know to be true, and which look more and more 
marvellous every time we turn them over again ; 
only somehow they do not belong to 'he ways of this 
year — I was going to say week , — and so the young 
people generally do not care to hear them I have had one 
pale-faced boy, to be sure, who would sit it his mother’s 


4 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


feet, and listen for hours to what took place before he 
was born. To him his mother’s wedding-gown was as old 
as Eve’s coat of skins. But then he was young enough 
not yet to have had a chance of losing the childhood 
common to the young and the old. Ah ! I should 
like to write for you, old men, old women, to help you 
to read the past, to help you to look for the future. 
Now is your salvation nearer than when you believed; 
for, however your souls may be at peace, however your 
quietness and confidence may give you strength, in the 
decay of your earthly tabernacle, in the shortening of its 
cords, in the weakening of its stakes, in the rents 
through which you see the stars, you have yet your 
share in the cry of the creation after the son ship. But 
the one thing I should keep saying to you, my com- 
panions in old age, would be, “ Friends, let us not grow 
old.” Old age is but a mask ; let us not call the mask 
the face. Is the acorn old, because its cup dries and 
drops it from its hold — because its skin has grown 
brown and cracks in the earth 1 Then only is a man 
growing old when he ceases to have sympathy with the 
young. That is a sign that his heart has begun to 
wither. And that is a dreadful kind of old age. The 
heart needs never be old. Indeed it should always be 
growing younger. Some of us feel younger, do we not, 
than when we were nine or ten ? It is not necessary to 
be able to play at leap-frog to enjoy the game. There 
are young creatures whose turn it is, and perhaps whose 
duty it would be, to play at leap-frog — if there was any 
necessity for putting the matter in that light ; and for us. 


HOMILETIC 


5 


we have the privilege, or if we will not accept the privi- 
lege, then I say we have the duty, of enjoying their 
leap-frog. But if we must withdraw in a measure from 
sociable relations with our fellows, let it be as the wise 
creatures that creep aside and wrap themselves up and 
lay themselves by, that their wings may grow and put on 
the lovely hues of their coming resurrection. Such a 
withdrawing is in the name of youth. And while it is 
pleasant — no one knows how pleasant except him who 
experiences it — to sit apart and see the drama of life 
going on around him, while his feelings are calm and 
free, his vision clear, and his judgment righteous, the old 
man must ever be ready, should the sweep of action 
catch him in its skirts, to get on his tottering old legs, 
and go with brave heart to do the work of a true mav, 
none the less true that his hands tremble, and that he 
would gladly return to his chimney-corner. If he is 
never thus called out, let him examine himself, lest he 
should be falling into the number of those that say, “ I 
go, sir,” and go not ; who are content with thinking 
beautiful things in an Atlantis, Oceana, Arcadia, or what 
it may be, but put not forth one of their fingers to work 
a salvation in the earth. Better than such is the man 
who, using just weights and a true balance, sells good 
flour, and never has a thought of his own. 

I have been talking — to my reader is it? or to my 
supposed group of grandchildren ? I remember — to my 
companions in old age. It is time I returned to the 
company who are hearing my whispers at the other side 
of the great thundering gallery. I take leave of my old 


6 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


friends with one word : We have yet a work to do, my 
friends ; but a work we shall never do aright after ceasing 
to understand the new generation. We are not the men, 
neither shall wisdom die with us. The Lord hath not 
forsaken his people because the young ones do not think 
just as the old ones choose. The Lord has something 
fresh to tell them, and is getting them ready to receive 
his message. When we are out of sympathy with the 
young, then I think our work in this world is over. It 
might end more honourably. 

Now, readers in general, I have had time to consider 
what to tell you about, and how to begin. My story will 
be rather about my family than myself now. I was, as it 
were, a little withdrawn, even by the time of which I am 
about to write. I had settled into a gray-haired, quite 
elderly, yet active man — young still, in fact, to what I 
arn now. But even then, though my faith had grown 
stronger, life had grown sadder, and needed all my 
stronger faith ; for the vanishing of beloved faces, and 
the trials of them that are dear, will make even those 
that look for a better country both for themselves and 
their friends, sad, though it will be with a preponderance 
of the first meaning of the word saii, which was settled, 
thoughtful. 

I am again seated in the little octagonal room, which 
I have made my study because I like it best. It is rather 
a shame, for my books cover over every foot of the old 
oak panelling. But they make the room all the pleas- 
anter to the eye, and after I am gone, there is the old 
oak, none the worse, for any one who prefers it to books. 


HOMILETIC. 


7 


I intend to use as the central portion of my present 
narrative the history of a year during part of which I 
took charge of a friend’s parish, while my brother-in-law, 
Thomas Weir, who was and is still my curate, took the 
entire charge of Marshmallows. What led to this will 
soon appear. I will try to be minute enough in my 
narrative to make my story interesting, although it will 
cost me suffering to recall some of the incidents I have 
to narrate. 


CHAPTER II. 

Constance’s birthday. 

5 it from observation of nature in its associar 
tion with human nature, or from artistic 
feeling alone, that Shakspere so often re- 
presents Nature’s mood as in harmony with 
the mood of the principal actors in his drama? I know 
I have so often found Nature’s mood in harmony with 
my own, even when she had nothing to do with forming 
mine, that in looking back I have wondered at the fact 
There may, however, be some self-deception about it 
At all events, on the morning of my Constance’s 
eighteenth birthday, a lovely October day with a golden 
east, clouds of golden foliage about the ways, and an air 
that seemed filled with the ether of an aw-um potabiie^ 
there came yet an occasional blast of wind, which, with- 
out being absolutely cold, smelt of winter, and made one 
draw one’s shoulders together with the sense of an un- 
friendly presence. I do not think Constance felt it at 



CONSTANCE’S BIRTHDAY. 


9 


all, however, as she stood on the steps in her riding* 
habit, waiting till the horses made their appearance. It 
had somehow grown into a custom with us that each of 
the children, as his or her birthday came round, should 
be king or queen for that day, and, subject to the veto 
of father and mother, should have everything his or her 
own way. Let me say for them, however, that in the 
matter of choosing the dinner, which of course was in- 
cluded in the royal prerogative, I came to see that it 
was almost invariably the favourite dishes of others of 
the family that were chosen, and not those especially 
agreeable to the royal palate. Members of families where 
children have not been taught from their earliest years 
that the great privilege of possession is the right to 
bestow, may regard this as an improbable assertion ; but 
others will know that it might well enough be true, even 
if I did not say that so it was. But there was always the 
choice of some individual treat, which was determined 
solely by the preference of the individual in authority. 
Constance had chosen “ a long ride with papa.” 

I suppose a parent may sometimes be right when he 
speaks with admiration of his own children. The pro- 
bability of his being correct is to be determined by the 
amount of capacity he has for admiring other people’s 
children. However this may be in my owm case, I ven- 
ture to assert that Constance did look very lovely that 
morning. She was fresh as the young day: we were 
early people — breakfast and prayers were over, and it was 
nine o’clock as she stood on tire steps and I approached 
her from the lawn. 


10 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


u Oh, papa ! isn’t it jolly ? ” she said, merrily. 

“ Very jolly indeed, my dear,” I answered, delighted 
to hear the word from the lips of my gentle daughter. 
She very seldom used a slang word, and when she did, 
she used it like a lady. Shall I tell you what she was 
like ? Ah ! you could not see her as I saw her that 
morning if I did. I will, however, try to give you a 
general idea, just in order that you and I should not be 
picturing to ourselves two very different persons while 1 
speak of her. 

She was rather little, and so slight that she looked 
tall. I have often observed that the impression o. 
height is an affair of proportion, and has nothing to 
do with feet and inches. She was rather fair in com 
plexion, with her mother’s blue eyes, and her mother’' 
long dark wavy hair. She was generally playful, and 
took greater liberties with me than any of the others „ 
only with her liberties, as with her slang, she knew in- 
stinctively when, where, and how much. For on the 
borders of her playfulness there seemed ever to hang 
a fringe of thoughtfulness, as if she felt that the present 
moment owed all its sparkle and brilliance to the eternal 
sunlight And the appearance was not in the least a 
deceptive one. The eternal was not far from her — 
none the farther that she enjoyed life like a bird, that 
her laugh was merry, that her heart was careless, and 
that her voice rang through the house — a sweet soprano 
voice — singing snatches of songs — now a street tune 
sne had caught from a London organ, now an air fiora 
Handel or Mozart — or that she would sometimes tease 


CONSTANCE’S BIRTHDAY. 


II 


her elder sister about her solemn and anxious looks j 
for Wynnie, the eldest, had to suffer for her grand- 
mother’s sins against her daughter, and came into the 
world with a troubled little heart, that was soon com- 
pelled to flee for refuge to the rock that was higher than 
she. Ah ! my Constance 1 But God was good to you, 
and to us in you. 

“Where shall we go, Connie?” I said, and the same 
moment the sound of the horses’ hoofs reached us. 

“Would it be too far to go to Addicehead ? ” she re- 
turned. 

“ It is a long ride,” I answered. 

“Too much for the pony?” 

“Oh dear, no. Not at all. I was thinking of you, 
not of the pony.” 

“ I ’m quite as able to ride as the pony i° *o carry me, 
papa. And I want to get something for Wynnie. Do 
let us go.” 

“Very well, my dear,” I said, and raised her to the 
saddle — -if I may say raised , for no bird ever hopped 
more lightly from one twig to another than she sprung 
from the ground on her pony’s back. 

In a moment I was beside her, and away we rode. 

The shadows were still long, the dew still pearly on 
the spiders’ webs, as we trotted out of our own grounds 
into a lane that led away towards the high road. 
Our horses were fresh and the air was exciting ; so we 
turned from the hard road into the first suitable 
field, and had a gallop to begin with. Constance 
was a good horsewoman, for she had been used to th« 


12 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


saddle longer than she could remember. She was 
now riding a tall well-bred pony, with plenty of life— - 
rather too much, I sometimes thought, when I was out 
with Wynnie ; but I never thought so when I was with 
Constance. Another field or two sufficiently quieted 
both animals — I did not want to have all our time taken 
up with their frolics — and then we began to talk. 

“You are getting quite a woman, now, Connie, my 
dear,” I said. 

* Quite an old grannie, papa,” she answered. 

“ Old enough to think about what ’s coming next,” I 
said gravely. 

“ Oh, papa ! And you are always telling us that we 
must not think about the morrow, or even the next hour. 
But, then, that’s in the pulpit,” she added, with a sly 
look up at me from under the drooping feather of her 
pretty hat. 

“You know very well what I mean, you puss,” I an- 
swered. “ And I don't say one thing in the pulpit and 
another out of it.” 

She was at my horse’s shoulder with a bound, as if 
Spry, her pony, had been of one mind and one piece 
with her. She was afraid she had offended me. She 
looked up into mine with as anxious a face as ever I saw 
upon Wynnie. 

“ Oh, thank you, papa ! ” she said, when I smiled. “ I 
thought I had been rude. I didn’t mean it. Indeed I 
didn’t. But I do wish you would make it a little plainer 
to me. I do think about things sometimes, though 
you would hardly believe it” 


CONSTANCE’S BIRTHDAY. 


13 


“What do you want made plainer, my child 1” 1 
asked. 

“ When we’re to think, and when we’ie not to think/ 
she answered. 

I remember all of this conversation because of whal 
Came so soon after. 

“If the known duty of to-morrow depends on the 
work of to-day,” I answered — “if it cannot be done 
right except you think about it, and lay your plans 
for it, then that thought is to-day’s business, not to- 
morrow’s.” 

“Dear papa, some of your explanations are more 
difficult than the things themselves. May I be as im- 
pertinent as I like on my birthday?” she asked suddenly, 
again looking up in my face. 

We were walking now, and she had a hold of my 
horse’s mane, so as to keep her pony close up. 

“Yes, my dear, as impertinent as you like — not an 
atom more, mind.” 

“ Well, papa, I sometimes wish you wouldn’t explain 
things so much. I seem to understand you all the time 
you are preaching, but when I try the text afterwards by 
myself, I can’t make anything of it, and I Ve forgotten 
every word you said about it.” 

“ Perhaps that is because you have no right to under 
stand it.” 

“ I thought all Protestants had a right to understand 
every word of the Bible,” she returned. 

“ If they can,” I rejoined. “ But, last Sunday, for in- 
stance, I did not expect anybody there to understand a 


14 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


certain bit of my sermon, except your mamma and 
Thomas Veir.” 

“ How funny ! What part of it was that ? ” 

“Oh ! I ’m not going to tell you. You have no right 
to understand it. But most likely you thought you 
understood it perfectly, and it appeared to you, in con- 
sequence, very commonplace.” 

“ In consequence of what?” 

“ In consequence of your thinking you understood it” 

“Oh, papa dear! you’re getting worse and worse. 
It’s not often I ask you anything — and on my birthday 
too ! It is really too bad of you to bewilder my poor 
little brains in this way.” 

“I will try to make you see what I mean, my pet. 
No talk about an idea that you never had in your head at 
all, can make you have that idea. If you had never seen 
a horse, no description even, not to say no amount of re- 
mark, would bring the figure of a horse before your mind. 
Much more is this the case with truths that belong to the 
convictions and feelings of the heart. Suppose a man had 
never in his life asked God for anything, or thanked 
God for anything, would his opinion as to what David 
meant in one cf his worshipping psalms be worth much 1 
The whole thing would be beyond him. If you have 
never known what i*t is to have care of any kind upon 
you, you cannot understand what our Lord means when 
he tells us to take no thought for the morrow.” 

“ But indeed, papa, I am very full of care some times, 
though not perhaps about to-morrow precisely. But, 
that does not matter, does it?” 


CONSTANCE’S BIRTHDAY. 


*5 


“Certainly not Tell me what you are full of care 
about, my child, and perhaps I can help you.” 

“ You often say, papa, that half the misery in this 
world comes from idleness, and that you do not believe 
that in a world where God is at work every day, Sundays 
not excepted, it could have been intended that women 
any more than men should have nothing to do. Now 
what am I to do? What have I been sent into the 
world for ? I don’t see it ; and I feel very useless and 
wrong sometimes.” 

“ I do not think there is veiy much to complain of 
you in that respect, Connie. You, and your sister as 
well, help me very much in my parish. You take much 
off your mother’s hands too. And you do a good deal 
for the poor. You teach your younger brothers and 
sister, and meantime you are learning yourselves.” 

“ Yes, but that ’s not work.” 

“ It is work. And it is the work that is given you to 
do at present. And you would do it much better if you 
were to look at it in that light. Not that I have anything 
to complain of.” 

“ But I don’t want to stop at home and lead an easy, 
comfortable life, when there are so many to help every- 
where in the world.” 

“ Is there anything better in doing something where 
God has not placed you, than in doing it where he has 
placed you ? ” 

“No, papa. But my sisters are quite enough for all 
you have for us to do at home. Is nobody ever to go 
away to find the work meant for her ? You won't think. 


i6 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


dear papa, that I want to get away from home, will 
you 1 ” 

44 No, my dear. I believe that you are really think- 
ing about duty. And now comes the moment for con- 
sidering the passage to which you began by referring 
What God may hereafter require of you, you must not 
give yourself the least trouble about. Everything he 
gives you to do, you must do as well as ever you can, 
and that is the best possible preparation for what he 
may want you to do next. If people would but do what 
they have to do, they would always find themselves 
ready for what came next. And I do not believe that 
those who follow this rule are ever left floundering on 
the sea-deserted sands of inaction, unable to find watel 
enough to swim in.” 

“ Thank you, dear papa. That *s a little sermon all 
to myself, and I think I shall understand it even when I 
think about it afterwards. Now let’s have a trot.” 

“ There is one thing more I ought to speak about 
though, Connie. It is not your moral nature alone you 
ought to cultivate. You ought to make yourself as worth 
God’s making as you possibly can. Now I am a little 
doubtful whether you keep up your studies at all.” 

She shrugged her pretty shoulders playfully, looking up 
in my face again. 

14 I don’t like dry things, papa.* 

u Nobody does.” 

“ Nobody ! ” she exclaimed. 44 How do the grammars 
and history-books come to be written then V ’ 

In talking to me, somehow, the child always put on 


CONSTANCE’S BIRTHDAY. 


17 


a more childish tone than when she talked to any one 
else. I am certain there was no affectation in it, though. 
Indeed, how could she be affected with her fault-finding 
old father ? 

“ No. Those books are exceedingly interesting to the 
people that make them. Dry things are just things that 
you do not know enough about to care for them. And 
all you learn at school is next to nothing to what you 
have to learn.” 

“What must I do, then?” she asked with a sigh. 
“ Must I go all over my French Grammar again ? Oh 
dear ! I do hate it so.” 

“ If you will tell me something you like, Connie, in- 
stead of something you don’t like, I may be able to give 
you advice. — Is there nothing you are fond of?” I con- 
tinued, finding that she remained silent. 

“ I don’t know anything in particular — that is, I don’t 
know anything in the way of school-work that I really 
liked. I don’t mean that I didn’t try to do what I had 
to do, for I did. There was just one thing I liked — the 
poetry we had to learn once a week. But I suppose gen- 
tlemen count that silly — don’t they ?” 

“ On the contrary, my dear, I would make that liking 
of yours the foundation of all your work. Besides, I 
think poetry the grandest thing God has given us— 
though perhaps you and I might not quite agree about 
what poetry was poetry enough to be counted an especial 
gift of God. Now, what poetry do you like best?” 

‘ Mrs Hemans’s, I think, papa.” 

u Well — very well — to begin with. * There is,’ as Ml 


8 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


.Carlyle said to a friend of mine — * There is a thin vein 
of true poetry in Mrs Piemans/ But it is time you had 
done with thin things, however good they may be. 
Most people never get beyond spoon-meat — in this 
world, at least, and they expect nothing else in the world 
to come. I must take you in hand myself, and see what 
I can do for you. It is wretched to see capable enough 
creatures, all for want of a little guidance, bursting with 
admiration of what owes its principal charm to novelty 
of form, gained at the cost of expression and sense. 
Not that that applies to Mrs Piemans. She is simple 
enough, only diluted to a degree. But I hold that what- 
ever mental food you take should be just a little too 
strong for you. That implies trouble, necessitates 
growth, and involves delight.” 

“ I shan’t mind how difficult it is if you help me, papa. 
But it is anything but satisfactory to go groping on with- 
out knowing what you are about.” 

I ought to have mentioned that Constance had been 
at school for two years, and had only been home a 
month that very day, in order to account for my know- 
ing so little about her tastes and habits of mind. We 
went on talking a little more in the same way, and if I 
were wiiting for young people only, I shoald be tempted 
to go on a little farther with the account of what we said 
to each other ; for it might help some of them to see 
that the thing they like best should, circumstances and 
conscience permitting, be made the centre from which 
they start to learn; that they should go on enlarging 
their knowledge all round from that one point at which 


CONSTANCE’S BIRTHDAY. 


*9 


God intended them to begin. But at length we fell into 
a silence, a very happy one on my part ; for I was more 
than delighted to find that this one too of my children 
was following after the truth — wanting to do what was 
right, namely, to obey the word of the Lord, whether 
openly spoken to all, or to herself in the voice of 
her own conscience and the light of that understanding 
which is the candle of the Lord. I had often said to 
myself in past years, when I had found myself in the 
company of young ladies who announced their opinions 
— probably of no deeper origin than the prejudices of 
their nurses — as if these distinguished them from all the 
world besides; who were profound upon fashion and 
ignorant of grace ; who had not a notion whether a dress 
was beautiful, but only whether it was of the newest cut 
— I had often said to myself : “ What shall I do if my 
daughters come to talk and think like that — if thinking 
it can be called ? ” but being confident that instruction 
for which the mind is not prepared only lies in a rotting 
heap, producing all kinds of mental evils, correspondent 
to the results of successive loads of food w r hich the 
system cannot assimilate, my hope had been to rouse 
wise questions in the minds of my children, in place of 
overwhelming their digestions with what could be of no 
instruction or edification without the foregoing appetite. 
Now my Constance had begun to ask me questions, and 
it made me very happy. We had thus come a long w'ay 
nearer to each other ; for however near the affection of 
human animals may bring them, there are abysses be- 
tween soul and soul — the souls even of father and 


20 


THE SEABOARD PARISH* 


daughter — over which they must pass to meet And I 
do not believe that any two human beings alive know 
yet what it is to love as love is in the glorious will of the 
Father of lights. 

I linger on with my talk, for I shrink from what I must 
relate. 

We were going at a gentle trot, silent, along a wood- 
land path — a brown, soft, shady road, nearly five miles 
from home, our horses scattering about the withered 
leaves that lay thick upon it. A good deal of underwood 
and a few large trees had been lately cleared from the 
place. There were many piles of faggots about, and a 
great log lying here and there along the side of the path. 
One of these, when a tree, had been struck by lightning, 
and had stood till the frosts and rains had bared it of its 
bark. Now it lay white as a skeleton by the side of the 
path, and was, I think, the cause of what followed. All 
at once my daughter’s pony sprang to the other side of 
the road, shying sideways ; unsettled her so, I presume ; 
then rearing and plunging, threw her from the saddle 
across one of the logs of which I have spoken. I was 
by her side in a moment. To my horror she lay motion- 
less. Her eyes were closed, and when I took her up in 
my arms she did not open them. I laid her on the moss, 
and got some water and sprinkled her face. Then she 
revived a little, but seemed in much pain, and all at once 
went off into another faint. I was in terrible perplexity. 

Presently a man who, having been cutting faggots at 
a little distance, had seen the pony careering through 
the wood, came up and asked what he could do to help 


CONSTANCE’S BIRTHDAY. 


21 


me. I told him to take my horse, whose bridle I had 
thrown over the latch of a gate, and ride to Oldcastle 
Hall, and ask Mrs Walton to come with the carriage 
as quickly as possible. “Tell her,” I said, “that her 
daughter has had a fall from her pony, and is rather 
shaken. Ride as hard as you can go.” 

The man was off in a moment; and there I sat 
watching my poor child, for what seemed to me a 
dreadfully long time before the carriage arrived. She 
had come to herself quite, but complained of much pain 
in her back ; and, to my distress, I found that she could 
net move herself enough to make the least change in her 
position. She evidently tried to keep up as well as she 
could ; but her face expressed great suffering: it was 
dreadfully pale, and looked worn with a month’s illness. 
All my fear was for her spine. 

At length I caught sight of the carriage coming 
through the wood as fast as the road would allow, with 
the woodman on the box directing the coachman. It 
drew up, and my wife got out. She was as pale as 
Constance, but quiet and firm, her features composed 
almos-t to determination. I had never seen her look like 
that before. She asked no questions : there was time 
enough for that afterwards. She had brought plenty 
of cushions and pillows, and we did all we could to 
make an easy couch for the poor girl ; but she moaned 
dreadfully as we lifted her into the carriage. We did 
our best to keep her from being shaken ; but those few 
miles were the longest journey I ever made in my life. 

When we reached home at length, we found tbit Ethel* 


22 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


or, as we commonly called her, using the other end o/ 
her name, Wynnie — for she was named after her mother 
— had got a room on the ground-floor — usually given to 
visitors — ready for her sister ; and we were glad indeed 
not to have to carry her up the stairs. Before my wife 
left, she had sent the groom off to Addicehead for both 
physician and surgeon. A young man who had settled 
at Marshmallows as general practitioner a year or two 
before, was waiting for us when we arrived. He helped 
us to lay her upon a mattress in the position in which 
she felt the least pain. But why should I linger over the 
sorrowful detail? All agreed that the poor child’s spine 
was seriously injured, and that probably years of suffer- 
ing were before her. Everything was done that could be 
done ; but she was not moved from that room for nine 
months, during which, though her pain certainly grew 
less by degrees, her want of power to move herself re- 
mained almost the same. 

When I had left her at last a little composed, with 
her mother seated by her bedside, I called my other 
two daughters — Wynnie, the eldest, and Dorothy, the 
youngest, whom I found seated on the floor outside, 
one on each side of the door weeping — into my study, 
and said to them : — “ My darlings, this is very sad ; but 
you must remember that it is God’s will ; and as you 
would both try to bear it cheerfully if it had fallen to 
your lot to bear, you must try to be cheerful even when 
it is your sister’s part to endure.” 

“O papa! pool Connie 1” cried Dora, and burst 
into fresh tears. 


Constance's birthday. 


23 


Wynnie said nothing, but knelt down by my knee, and 
laid her cheek upon it. 

“ Shall I tell you what Constance said to me just 
before I left the room 1 ” I asked. 

“ Please do, papa.” 

*' She whispered, 1 You must try to bear it, all of you, 
as well as you can. I don’t mind it very much, only for 
you.’ So, you see, if you want to make her comfortable, 
you must not look gloomy and troubled. Sick people 
like to see cheerful faces about them ; and I am sure 
Connie will not suffer nearly so much if she finds that 
she does not make the household gloomy.” 

This I had learned from being ill myself once or twice 
since my marriage. My wife never came near me with 
a gloomy face, and I had found that it was quite possible 
to be sympathetic with those of my flock who were ill, 
without putting on a long face when I went to see them. 
Of course, I do not mean that I could, or that it was 
desirable that I should, look cheerful when any were in 
great pain or mental distress. But in ordinary condi- 
tions of illness a cheerful countenance is as a message of 
all V well , which may surely be carried into a sick chamber 
by the man who believes that the heart of a loving 
Father is at the centre of things, that he is light all 
about the darkness, and that he will not only bring good 
out of evil at last, but will be with the sufferer all the 
time, making endurance possible, and pain tolerable. 
There are a thousand alleviations that people do not 
often think of, coming from God himself. Would you 
not say, for instance, that time must pass very slowly in 


24 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


pain ? But have you never observed, or has no one ever 
made the remark to you, how strangely fast, even in 
severe pain, the time passes after all ? 

“We will do all we can, will we not,” I went on, “to 
make her as comfortable as possible? You, Dora, must 
attend to your little brothers, that your mother may not 
have too much to think about now that she will have 
Connie to nurse.” 

They could not say much, but they both kissed me, 
and went away leaving me to understand clearly enough 
that they had quite understood me. I then returned to 
the sick chamber, where I found that the poor child had 
fallen asleep. 

My wife and I watched by her bed-side on alternate 
nights, until the pain had so far subsided, and the fever 
was so far reduced, that we could allow Wynnie to take 
a share in the office. We could not think of giving her 
over to the care of any but one of ourselves during the 
night. Her chief suffering came from its being necessary 
that she should keep nearly one position on her back 
because of her spine, while the external bruise and the 
swelling of the muscles were in consequence so painful, 
that it needed all that mechanical contrivance could do 
to render the position endurable. But these outward 
conditions were greatly ameliorated before many days 
were over. 

This is a dreary beginning of my story, is it not! 
But sickness of all kinds is such a common thing in the 
world, that it is well sometimes to let our minds rest 
upon it, lest it should take us altogether at unawares, 


CONSTANCE’S BIRTHDAY. 


25 


either in ourselves or our friends, when it comes. If it 
were not a good thing in the end, surely it would not 
be ; and perhaps before I have done my readers will not 
be sorry that my tale began so gloomily. The sickness 
in Judaea eighteen hundred and thirty-five years ago, or 
thereabouts, has no small part in the story of him who 
came to put all things under our feet. Praise be to him 
for evermore ! 

It soon became evident to me that that room was 
like a new and more sacred heart to the house. At first 
it radiated gloom to the remotest corners ; but soon rays 
of light began to appear mingling with the gloom. I 
could see that bits of news were carried from it to the 
servants in the kitchen, in the garden, in the stable, 
and over the way to the home-farm. Even in the vil- 
lage, and everywhere over the parish, I was received 
more kindly and listened to more willingly, because of 
the trouble I and my family were in ; while in the house, 
although we had never been anything else than a loving 
family, it was easy to discover that we all drew more 
closely together in consequence of our common anxiety. 
Previous to this, it had been no unusual thing to see 
VVynnie and Dora impatient with each other ; for Dora 
was none the less a wild, somewhat lawless child, that 
she was a profoundly affectionate one. She rather re- 
sembled her cousin Judy, in fact — whom she called 
Aunt Judy, and with whom she was naturally a great 
favourite. Wynnie, on the other hand, was sedate, and 
rather severe — -more severe, I must in justice say, with 
beiself than with any one else. I had sometimes wished. 


26 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


it is true, that her mother, in regard to the younger 
children, were more like her; but there I was wrong. 
For one of the great goods that come of having two 
parents, is that the one balances and rectifies the mo- 
tions of the other. No one is good but God. No one 
holds the truth, or can hold it, in one and the same thought, 
but God. Our human life is often, at best, but an oscilla- 
tion between the extremes which together make the truth , 
and it is not a bad thing in a family, that the pendulums 
of father and mother should differ in movement so far, 
that when the one is at one extremity of the swing, the 
other should be at the other, so that they meet only in 
the point of indifference , in the middle ; that the pre- 
dominant tendency of the one should not be the pre- 
dominant tendency of the other. I was a very strict 
disciplinarian — too much so, perhaps, sometimes : 
Ethelwyn, on the other hand, was too much inclined, 
I thought, to excuse everything. I was law, she was 
grace. But grace often yielded to law, and law some- 
times yielded to grace. Yet she represented the higher; 
for in the ultimate triumph of grace, in the glad perform- 
ance of the command from love of what is commanded, 
the law is fulfilled : the law is a schoolmaster to bring us 
to Christ. I must say this for myself, however, that, 
although obedience was the one thing I enforced, be- 
lieving it the one thing upon which all family economy 
primarily depends, yet my object always was to set my 
children free from my law as soon as possible; in a 
word, to help them to become, as soon as it might be, 
a law unto themselves. Then they would need no more 


CONSTANCE’S BIRTHDAY. 


*7 


of mine. Then I would go entirely over to the mother's 
higher side, and become to them, as much as in me lay, 
no longer law and truth, but grace and truth. But to 
return to my children — it was soon evident not only that 
Wynnie had grown more indulgent to Dora's vagaries, 
but that Dora was more submissive to Wynnie, while 
the younger children began to obey their eldest sister 
with a willing obedience, keeping down their effer- 
vescence within doors, and letting it off only out of 
doors, or in the out-houses. 

When Constance began to recover a little, then the 
sacredness of that chamber began to show itself more 
powerfully, radiating on all sides a yet stronger in- 
fluence of peace and goodwill. It was like a fountain 
of gentle light, quieting and bringing more or less into 
tune all that came within the circle of its sweetness. 
This brings me to speak again of my lovely child. For 
surely a father may speak thus of a child of God. He 
cannot regard hi* child as his even as a book he has 
written may be his. A man’s child is his because God 
has said to him, ‘‘Take this child and nurse it for me.’' 
She is God’s making; God's marvellous invention, to 
be tended and cared for, and ministered unto as one of 
his precious things; a young angel, let me say, who 
needs the air of this lower world to make her wings 
grow. And while he regards her thus, he will see all 
other children in the same ligjit, and will not dare to 
set up his own against others of God’s biuod with the 
new-budding wings. The universal heart of truth will 
thus rectify, while it intensifies, the individual feeling 


28 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


towards one’s own; and the man who is most free 
from poor partisanship in regard to his own family, 
will feel the most individual tenderness for the lovely 
human creatures whom God has given into his own 
especial care and responsibility. Show me the man who 
is tender, reverential, gracious towards the children of 
other men, and I will show you the man who will love 
and tend his own best, to whose heart his own will flee 
for their first refuge after God, when they catch sight of 
the cloud in the wind 


CHAPTER m. 


THE SICK CHAMBER. 

N the course of a month there was a good 
deal more of light in the smile with which 
my darling greeted me when I entered her 
room in the morning. Her pain was greatly 
gone, but the power of moving her limbs had not yet 
even begun to show itself. 

One day she received me with a still happier smile 
than I had yet seen upon her face, put out her thin white 
hand, took mine and kissed it, and said, “ Papa,” with a 
lingering on the last syllable. 

“ What is it, my pet ? ” I asked, 

“ I am so happy ! ” 

“ What makes you so happy 1” I asked again. 

u I don’t know,” she answered ; “ I haven’t thought 
about it yet. But everything looks so pleasant round 
me. Is it nearly winter yet, papal I’ve forgotten all 
about how the time has been going.” 



30 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ It is almost winter, my dear. There is hardly a leaf 
left on the trees — just two or three disconsolate yellow 
ones that want to get away down to the rest. They go 
fluttering and fluttering and trying to break away, but 
they can’t 

“ That is just as I felt a little while ago. I wanted to 
die and get away, papa ; for I thought I should never be 
well again, and I should be in everybody’s way. — I am 
afraid I shall not get well, after all,” she added, and the 
light clouded on her sweet face. 

“ Well, my darling, we are in God’s hands. We shall 
never get tired of you, and you must not get tired of us. 
Would you get tired of nursing me, if I were ill? ” 

“ O papa 1 ” And the tears began to gather in her 
eyes. 

“ Then you must think we are not able to love so well 
as you.” 

“ I know what you mean. I did not think of it that 
way. I will never think so about it again. I was only 
thinking how useless I was.” 

“ There you are quite mistaken, my dear. No living 
creature ever was useless. You’ve got plenty to do 
there.” 

“ But what have I got to do f I don’t feel able for any- 
thing,” she said ; and again the tears came in her eyes, as 
if I had been telling her to get up and she could not. 

“A great deal of our work,” I answered, “ we do with- 
out knowing what it is. But I ’ll tell you what you have 
got to do : you have got to believe in God, and in every- 
body in this house.” 


THE SICK CHAMBER. 


3* 


“ I do, I do. But that is easy to do,” she returned. 

“ And do you think that the work God gives us to do 
is never easy 1 Jesus says his yoke is easy, his burden is 
light. People sometimes refuse to do God’s work just 
because it is easy. This is, sometimes, because they 
cannot believe that easy work is his work ; but there may 
be a very bad pride in it : it may be because they think 
that there is little or no honour to be got in that way ; 
and therefore they despise it. Some again accept it with 
half a heart, and do it with half a hand. But, however 
easy any work may be, it cannot be well done without 
taking thought about it. And such people, instead of 
taking thought about their work, generally take thought 
about the morrow, in which no work can be done any 
more than in yesterday. The Holy Present ! — I think I 
must make one more sermon about it — although you, 
Connie,” I said, meaning it for a little joke, “do think 
that I ha ye said too much about it already.” 

“ Papa, papa ! do forgive me. This is a judgment on 
me for talking to you as I did that dreadful morning. 
But I was so happy that I was impertinent.” 

“ You silly darling ! ” I said. “ A judgment ! God 
be angry with you for that ! Even if it had been any- 
thing wrong, which it was not, do you think God has no 
patience ? No, Connie. I will tell you what seems to 
me much more likely. You wanted something to do j 
and so God gave you something to do.” 

“ Lying in bed and doing nothing ! ” 

“Yes. Just lying in bed, and doing his will.” 

* If I could but feel that X was doing his will l * 


32 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


u When you do it, then you will feel you are doing it.” 

“ I know you are coming to something, papa. Please 
make haste, for my back is getting so bad.” 

“ I Ve tired you, my pet. It was very thoughtless of 
me. I will tell you the rest another time,” I said 
rising. 

“ No, no. It will make me much worse not to heai 
it all now.” 

“ Well, I will tell you. Be still, my darling, I won’t be 
long. — In the time of the old sacrifices, when God so 
kindly told his ignorant children to do something for him 
in that way, poor people were told to bring, not a bullock 
or a sheep, for that was more than they could get, but a 
pair of turtle doves, or two young pigeons. But now, as 
Crashaw the poet says, ‘ Ourselves become our own best 
sacrifice/ God wanted to teach people to offer them- 
selves. Now, you are poor, my pet, and you cannot 
offer yourself in great things done for your fellow -men, 
which was the way Jesus did. But you must remember 
that the two young pigeons of the poor were just as 
acceptable to God as the fat bullock of the rich. There- 
fore you must say to God something like this : — 1 O 
heavenly Father, I have nothing to offer thee but my 
patience. I will bear thy will, and so offer my will a 
burnt-offering unto thine. I will be as useless as thou 
pieasest/ Depend upon it, my darling, in the midst of 
all the science about the world and its ways, and all the 
ignorance of God and his greatness, the man or woman 
who can thus say, Thy will be do?ie, with the true heart of 
giving up, is nearer the secret of things than the gedlo- 


THE SICK CHAMBER. 


33 


gist and theologian. And now, my darling, be quiet in 
God’s name.” 

She held up her mouth to kiss me, but did not speak, 
and I left her, and sent Dora to sit with her. 

In the evening, when I went into her room again, 
having been out in my parish all the moining, I began 
to unload my budget of small events. Indeed, we all 
came in like pelicans with stuffed pouches to empty 
them in her room, as if she had been the only young 
one we had, and we must cram her with news. Or, 
rather, she was like the queen of the commonwealth 
sending out her messages into all parts, and receiving 
messages in return. I might call her the brain of the 
house ; but I have used similes enough for a while. 

After I had done talking, she said — 

And you have been to the school too, papal” 

“ Yes. I go to the school almost every day. I fancy 
in such a school as ours the young people get more 
good than they do in church. You know I had made 
a great change in the Sunday-school just before you 
came home.” 

“I heard of that, papa. You won’t let any of the 
little ones go to school on the Sunday.” 

“ No. It is too much for them. And having made 
this change, I feel the necessity of being in the school 
myself nearly every day, that I may do something direct 
for the little ones” 

“ And you’ll have to take me up soon, as you pro- 
mised, you know, papa— just before Sprite threw 
me.” 

c 


34 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ As soon as you like, my dear, after you are able to 
read again/’ 

“Oh, you must begin before that, please. — You could 
spare time to read a little to me, couldn’t you ? ” she 
said, doubtfully, as if she feared she was asking too 
much. 

“ Certainly, my dear ; and I will begin to think about 
it at once.” 

It was in part the result of this wish of my child’s that 
it became the custom to gather in her room on Sunday 
evenings. She was quite unable for any kind of work 
such as she would have had me commence with her, but 
I used to take something to read to her every now and 
then, and always after our early tea on Sundays. 

What a thing it is to have one to speak and think 
about and try to find out and understand, who is always 
and altogether and perfectly good ! Such a centre that 
is for all our thoughts and wor<*s and actions and imagi- 
nations? It is, indeed, blessed to be human beings, with 
Jesus Christ for the centre of humanity. . 

In the papers wherein I am about to record the chief 
events of the following years of my life, I shall give a 
short account of what passed at some of these assemblies 
in my child’s room, in the hope that it may give my 
friends something, if not new, yet fresh to think about. 
For God has so made us that every one who thinks at 
all, thinks in a way that must be more or less fresh to 
every one else who thinks, if he only have the gift of 
setting forth his thoughts so that we can see what they 


THE SICK CHAMBER. 


35 


I hope my readers will not be alarmed at this, and 
suppose that I am about to inflict long sermons upon 
them. I am not. I do hope, as I say, to teach them 
something ; but those whom I succeed in so teaching 
will share in the delight it will give me to write about 
what I love most. 

As far as I can remember, I will tell how this Sunday- 
evening class began. I was sitting by Constance’s bed. 
The fire was burning brightly, and the twilight had 
deepened so nearly into night that it was reflected back 
from the window, for the curtains had not yet been 
drawn. There was no light in the room but that of the 
fire. 

Now Constance was in the way of asking often what 
kind of day or night it was, for there never was a girl 
more a child of nature than she. Her heart seemed to 
respond at once to any and every mood of the world 
around her. To her the condition of air, earth, and sky 
was news, and news of poetic interest too. “ What is 
it like ? ” she would often say, without any more defi- 
nite shaping of the question. This same evening she 
said, — 

“ What is it like, papa f ** 

“ It is growing dark,” I answered, " as you can see. 
It is a still evening, and what they call a black frost. 
The trees are standing as still as if they were carved out 
of stone, and would snap off everywhere if the wind were 
to blow. The ground is dark, and as hard as if it were 
of cast iron. A gloomy night rather, my dear. It looks 
as if there were something upon its mind that made it 


36 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


sullenly thoughtful ; but the stars are coming out one 
after another overhead, and the sky will be all awake 
soon. A strange thing the life that goes on all night, is 
it not? The life of owlets, and mice, and beasts of 
prey, and bats, and stars,” I said, with no very cate- 
gorical arrangement, “ and dreams, and flowers that don't 
go to sleep like the rest, but send out their scent all 
night long. Only those are gone now. There are no 
scents abroad, not even of the earth in such a frost as 
this.” 

“ Don’t you think it looks sometimes, papa, as if God 
turned his back on the world, or went farther away from 
it for a while ? ” 

“ Tell me a little more what you mean, Connie.” 

“Well, this night now, this dark, frozen, lifeless night, 
which you have been describing to me, isn ’t like God at 
all— is it ? ” 

“No, it is not. I sec what you mean i ow.” 

“ It is just as if he had gone away and said, ‘ Now 
you shall see what you can do without me.’ ” 

“Something like that. But do you know that English 
people — at least I think so — enjoy the changeful weather 
of their country much more upon the whole than those 
who have fine weather constantly? You see it is not 
enough to satisfy God’s goodness that he should give us 
all things richly to enjoy, but he must make us able to 
enjoy them as richly as he gives them. He has to con- 
sider not only the gift, but the receiver of the gift. He 
has to make us able to take the gift and make it our own, 
as well as to give us the gift. In fact, it is not real giving, 


THE SICK CHAMBER. 


37 


with the full, that is, the divine, meaning of giving, 
without it He has to give us to the gift as well as give 
the gift to us. Now for this, a break, an interruption is 
good, is invaluable, for then we begin to think about the 
thing, and do something in the matter ourselves. The 
wonder of God’s teaching is that, in great part, he 
makes us not merely learn, but teach ourselves, and that 
is far grander than if he only made our minds as he 
makes our bodies.” 

“ I think I understand you, papa. For since I have 
been ill, you would wonder, if you could see into me, 
how even what you tell me about the world out of doors 
gives me more pleasure than I think I ever had when I 
could go about it just as I liked.” 

“ It wouldn’t do that, though, you know, it you hadn't 
had the other first. The pleasure you have comes as 
much from your memory as from my news.” 

“ I see that, papa.” 

“ Now can you tell me anything in history that confirms 
what I have been saying?” 

“I don’t know anything about history, papa. The 
only thing that comes into my head is what you were 
saying yourself the other day about Milton’s blindness.” 

“ Ah, yes. I had not thought of that. Do you know, 
I do believe that God wanted a grand poem from that 
man, and therefore blinded him that he might be able 
to write it. But he had first trained him v.p to the point 
— given him thirty years in which he had not to provide 
the bread of a single day, only to learn and think ; then 
set him to teach boys; then placed him at Crom well’s 




THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


side, in the midst of the tumultuous movement of public 
affairs, into which the late student entered with ail his 
heart and soul ; and then last of all he cast the veil of 
a divine darkness over him, sent him into a chamber far 
more retired than that in which he laboured at Cam- 
bridge, and set him like the nightingale to sing darkling. 
The blackness about him was just the great canvas 
which God gave him to cover with forms of light and 
music. Deep wells of memory burst upwards from 
below ; the windows of heaven were opened from above ; 
from both rushed the deluge of song which flooded his 
soul, and which he has poured out in a great river 
to us.” 

“ It was rather hard for poor. Milton, though, wasn’t 
it, papa ? ” 

“ Wait till he says so, my dear. We are sometimes 
too ready with our sympathy, and think things a great 
deal worse than those do who have to undergo them. 
Who would not be glad to be struck with such blindness 
as Milton’s V* 

“ Those that do not care about his poetry, papa,” an 
swered Constance, with a deprecatory smile. 

“ Well said, my Connie. And to such it never can 
come. But, if it please God, you shall love Milton before 
you are about again. You can’t love one you know 
nothing about.” 

“ I have tried to read him a little.” 

“ Yes, I daresay. You might as well talk of not liking 
a man whose face you had never seen, because you did 
not approve of the back of his coat. But you and Milton 


THE SICK CHAMBER. 


39 


together have led me away from a far grander instance of 
what we had been talking about. Are you tired, darling?" 

“ Not the least, papa. You don’t mind what I said 
about Milton ? ” 

“ Not at all, my dear. I like your honesty. But I 
should mind very much if you thought, with your 
ignorance of Milton, that your judgment of him was 
more likely to be right than mine, with my knowledge of 
him.” 

“ O papa ! I am only sorry that I am not capable 
of appreciating him." 

“ There you are wrong again. I think you are quite 
capable of appreciating him. But you cannot appreciate 
what you have never seen. You think of him as dry, 
and think you ought to be able to like dry things. Now 
he is not dry, and you ought not to be able to like dry 
things. You have a figure before you in your fancy, 
which is dry, and which you call Milton. But it is no 
more Milton than your dull-faced Dutch doll, which you 
called after her, was your merry Aunt Judy. But here 
comes your mamma ; and I haven’t said what I wanted 
to say yet” 

“ But surely, husband, you can say it all the same, 1 ' 
said my wife. “ I will go away if you can’t." 

“ I can say it all the better, my love. Come and sit 
down here beside me. I was trying to show Connie" 

“ You did show me, papa." 

“Well I was showing Connie that a gift has some- 
times to be taken away again before we can know what 
it is worth, and so receive it right." 


40 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


Ethelwyn sighed. She was always more open to the 
mournful than the glad. Her heart had been dreadfully 
wrung in her youth. 

“ And I was going on to give her the greatest instance 
of it in human history. As long as our Lord was with 
his disciples, they could not see him right : he was 
too near them. Too much light, too many words, too 
much revelation, blinds or stupifies. The Lord had been 
with them long enough. They loved him dearly, and 
yet often forgot his words almost as soon as he said 
them. He could not get it into them, for instance, that 
he had not come to be a king. Whatever he said, they 
shaped it over again after their own fancy; and their minds 
were so full of their own worldly notions of grandeur and 
command, that they could not receive into their souls 
the gift of God present before their eyes. Therefore he 
was taken away, that his Spirit, which was more him- 
self than his bodily presence, might come into them— 
that they might receive the gift of God into their inner- 
most being. After he had gone out of their sight, and 
they might look all around and down in the grave and 
up in the air, and not see him anywhere — when they 
thought they had lost him, he began to come to them 
again from the other side — from the inside. They found 
that the image of him which his presence with them 
had printed in light upon their souls, began to revive in 
the daik of his absence; and not that only, but that in 
looking at it without the overwhelming of his bodily 
presence, lines and forms and meanings began to dawn 
out of it which they had never seen before. And his 


THE SICK CHAMBER. 


4 * 


words came back to them, no longer as they had received 
them, but as he meant them. The spirit of Christ filling 
their hearts and giving them new power, made them re- 
member, by making them able to understand, all that he 
had said to them. They were then always saying to each 
other, ‘You remember how;’ whereas before, they had 
been always staring at each other with astonishment and 
something very near incredulity, while he spoke to them. 
So that after he had gone away, he was really nearer 
to them than he had been before. The meaning of 
anything is more than its visible presence. There is a 
soul in everything, and that soul is the meaning of it. 
The soul of the world and all its beauty has come nearer 
to you, my dear, just because you are separated from it 
for a time.” 

“ Thank you, dear papa. I do like to get a little ser- 
mon all to myself now and then. That is another good 
of being ill.” 

“ You don’t mean me to have a share in it, then, Connie, 
do you?” said my wife, smiling at her daughter’s pleasure. 

“ Oh, mamma ! I should have thought you knew all 
papa had got to say by this time. I daresay he has given 
you a thousand sermons all to yourself.” 

“Then you suppose, Connie, that I came into the 
world with just a boxful of sermons, and after I had 
taken them all out there were no more. I should be 
Sony to think I should not have a good many new things 
to say by this time next year.” 

“ Well, papa, I wish I could be sure of knowing more 
when next year comes, 1 ’ 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


4 * 


“Most people do learn, whether they will or not 
But the kind of learning is very different in the two 
cases.” 

“ But I want to ask you one question, papa : do you 
think that we should not know Jesus better now if 
he were to come and let us see him — as he came to 
the disciples so long, long ago ] I wish it were not so 
long ago.” 

“As to the time, it makes no difference whether it 
was last year or two thousand years ago. The whole 
question is how much we understand, and understand- 
ing, obey him. And I do not think we should be any 
nearer that if he came amongst us bodily again. If we 
should, he would come. I believe we should be further 
off it.” 

“Do you think, then,” said Connie, in an almost 
despairing tone, as if I wen. the prophet of great evil, 
“ that we shall never, never, never see him 1 ” 

“That is quite another thing, my Connie. That is 
the heart of my hopes by day and my dreams by 
night. To behold the face of Jesus seems to me the 
one thing to be desired. I do not know that it is to 
be prayed for; but 1 think it will be given us as the 
great bounty of God, so soon as ever we are capable of 
it. That sight of the face of Jesus is, I think, what 
is meant by his glorious appearing, but it will come 
as a consequence of his spirit in us, not as a cause of 
that spirit in us. The pure in heart shall see God. 
The seeing of him will be the sign that we are like 
him, for only by being like him can we see him as 


THE SICK CHAMBER. 


43 


he is. All the time that he was with them, the dis- 
ciples never saw him as he was. You must under- 
stand a man before you can see and read his face 
aright ; and as the disciples did not understand our 
Lord’s heart, they could neither see nor read his face 
aright. But when we shall be fit to look that man in the 
face, God only knows.” 

“ Then do you think, papa, that we, who have never 
seen him, could know him better than the disciples! 
I don’t mean, of course, better than they knew him after 
he was taken away from them, but better than they knew 
him while he was still with them?” 

“ Certainly I do, my dear.” 

“Oh, papa! Is it possible! Why don’t we all 
then?” 

“ Because we won’t take the trouble ; that is the 
reason.” 

“Oh, what a grand thing to think! That would 
be worth living — worth being ill for. But how? how? 
Can’t you help me? Mayn’t one human being help 
another ? ” 

“It is the highest duty one human being owes to 
another. But whoever wants to learn must pray, and 
think, and, above all, obey — that is simply, do what 
Jesus says.” 

There followed a little silence, and I could hear my 
child sobbing. And the teays stood in my wife’s eyes— 
tears of gladness to hear her daughter’s sobs. 

“ I will try, papa,” Constance said at last “But you 
wiL help met” 


44 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


"That I will, my love. I will help you in the best 
way I know ; by trying to tell you w r hat I have heard and 
learned about him — heard and learned of the Father, I 
hope and trust. It is coming near to the time when he 
was born ; — but I have spoken quite as long as you are 
able to bear to-night.” 

"No, no, papa. Do go on” 

"No, my dear; no more to-night That would be 
to offend against the very truth I have been trying to 
set forth to you. But next Sunday — you have plenty 
to think about till then — I will talk to you about the 
baby Jesus; and perhaps I may find something more 
to help you by that time, besides what I have got to 
say now.” 

“ But,” said my wife, " don’t you think, Connie, this is 
too good to keep all to ourselves? Don’t you think we 
ought to have Wynnie and Dora in ? ” 

“ Yes, yes, mamma. Do let us have them in. And 
Harry and Charlie too.” 

“ I fear they are rather young yet,” I said. " Perhaps 
it might do them harm.” 

" It would be all the better for us to have them any- 
how,” said Ethelwyn smiling. 

"How do you mean, my dear?” 

" Because you will say things more simply if you have 
them by you. Besides, you always say such things to 
children as delight grown people, though they could 
never get them out of you.” 

It was a wife’s speech, reader. Forgive me for writ* 
ing it 


THE SICK CHAMBER 


4$ 


“ Well,” I said, “ I don’t mind them coming in, 
but I don’t promise to say anything directly to them. 
And you must let them go away the moment they 
wish it.” 

“ Certainly,” answered my wife ; and so the mattel 
was arranged 


CHAPTER IV. 


A SUNDAY EVENING. 

HEN I went in to see Constance the next 
Sunday morning before going to church, I 
knew by tier face that she was expecting the 
evening. I took care to get into no conver- 
sation with her during the day, that she might be quite 
fresh. In the evening, when I went into her room again 
with my bible in my hand, I found all our little company 
assembled. There was a glorious fire, for it was very 
cold, and the little ones were seated on the rug before 
it, one on each side of their mother ; Wynnie sat by the 
further side of the bed, for she always avoided any place 
or thing she thought another might like ; and Doia sat 
by the further chimney-corner, leaving the space between 
the fire and my chair open that I might see and share 
the glow. 

“The wind is very high, papa,” said Constance, as I 
•eated myself beside her. 



A SUNDAY EVENING. 


47 


“Yes, my dear. It has been blowing all day, and 
since sundown it has blown harder. Do you like the 
wind, Connie V * 

“ I am afraid I do like it. When it roars like that in 
the chimneys, and shakes the windows with a great rush 
as if it would get into the house and tear us to pieces, 
and then goes moaning away into the woods, and grum- 
bles about in them till it grows savage again, and rushes 
up at us with fresh fury, I am afraid I delight in it I 
feel so safe in the very jaws of danger.** 

“Why, you are quite poetic, Connie !** said Wynnie. 

“ Don’t laugh at me, Wynnie. Mind I ’m an invalid, 
and I can’t bear to be laughed at/’ returned Connie, half 
laughing herself, and a little more than a quarter crying. 

Wynnie rose and kissed her, whispered something to 
her which made her laugh outright, and then sat down 
again. 

“ But tell me, Connie/* I said, “ why you are afraid 
you enjoy hearing the wind about the house.’* 

“ Because it must be so dreadful for those that are out 
in it.” 

“ Perhaps not quite so bad as we think. You must 
not suppose that God has forgotten them, or cares less 
for them than for you because they are out in the wind.” 

“ But if we thought like that, papa,” said Wynnie, 
“shouldn’t we come to feel that their sufferings were 
none of our business I ** 

“ If our benevolence rests on the belief that God is 
less loving than we, it will come to a bad end somehow 
before long, Wynnie.” 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


4* 


“ Of course, I could not think that,” she returned. 

“Then your kindness would be such that you dared 
not, in God’s name, think hopefully for those you could 
not help, lest you should, believing in his kindness, cease 
to help those whom you could help ! Either God in- 
tended that there should be poverty and suffering, or he 
did not. If he did not intend it — for similar reasons to 
those for which he allows all sorts of evils — then there is 
nothing between but that we should sell everything that 
we have and give it away to the poor.” 

“Then why don’t we?” said Wynnie, looking truth it- 
self in my face. 

“Because that is not God’s way, and we should do 
no end of harm by so doing. We should make so many 
more of those who will not help themselves, who will 
not be set free from themselves by rising above them- 
selves. We are not to gratify our own benevolence at 
the expense of its object — not to save our own souls as 
we fancy, by putting other souls into more danger than 
God meant for them.” 

“ It sounds hard doctrine from your lips, papa,” said 
Wynnie. 

“ Many things will look hard in so many words, which 
yet will be found kindness itself, when they are inter- 
preted by a higher theory. If the one thing is to .et 
people have everything they want, then of course every 
one ought to be rich. I have no doubt such a man as 
we were reading of in the papers the other day, who 
saw his servant girl drown without making the least 
effort to save her, and then bemoaned the loss of her 


A SUNDAY EVENING. 


49 


labour for the coming harvest, thinking himself ill used 
in her death, would hug his own selfishness on hearing 
my words, and say, * All right, parson ! Every man for 
himself C I made my own money, and they may make 
theirs !’ You know that is not exactly the way I should 
think oi act with regard to my neighbour. But if it were 
only that I have seen such noble characters cast in the 
mould of poverty, I should be compelled to regard 
poverty as one of God’s powers in the world for raising 
the children of the kingdom, and to believe that it was 
not because it could not be helped that our Lord said, 
• The poor ye have always with you.’ But what I wanted 
to say was, that there can be no reason why Connie 
should not enjoy what God has given her, although he 
has not thought fit to give as much to everybody; and, 
above all, that we shall not help those right whom God 
gives us to help, if we do not believe that God is caring 
for every one of them as much as he is caring for every 
one of us. There was once a baby born in a stable, be- 
cause his poor mother could get no room in a decent 
house. Where she lay, I can hardly think. They must 
have made a bed of hay and straw for her in the stall, 
for we know the baby’s cradle was the manger. Had 
God forsaken them 1 or would they not have been more 
wmfortcible , if that was the main thing, somewhere else 1 
Ah ! if the disciples, who were being born about the 
game time of fisher-fathers and cottage-mothers, to get 
ready for him to call and teach by the time he should be 
thirty years of age — if they had only been old enough, 

and had known that he was coming — would they not 

D 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


So 


have got everything ready for him ? They would have 
clubbed their little savings together, and worked day 
and night, and some rich women would have helped 
them, and they would have dressed the baby in fine linen, 
and got him the richest room their money would get, and 
they would have made the gold that the wise men brought 
into a crown for his little head, and would have burnt 
the frankincense before him. And so our little manger- 
baby would have been taken away from us. No more the 
stable-born Saviour — no more the poor Son of God born 
for us all, as strong, as noble, as loving, as worshipful, as 
beautiful as he was poor! And we should not have 
learned that God does not care for money ; that if he 
does not give more of it, it is not that it is scarce with 
nim, or that he is unkind, but that he does not value 
it himself. And if he sent his own Son to be not 
merely brought up in the house of the carpenter of a 
little village, but to be born in the stable of a vil-lage inn, 
we need not suppose, because a man sleeps under a hay- 
stack, and is put in prison for it next day, that God does 
not care for him.” 

“ Lut why did Jesus come so poor, papa?” 

‘‘That he might be just a human baby; that he 
might not be distinguished by this or by that accident 
of birth ; that he might have nothing but a mother’s 
love to welcome him, and so belong to everybody ; that 
from the first he might show that the kingdom of God 
and the favour of God lie not in these external things at 
all — that the poorest little one, born in the meanest 
dwelling, or in none at all, is as much God’s own and 


A SUNDAY EVENING. 


5 * 


God’s care as if he came in a royal chamber with colour 
and shine all about him. Had Jesus come amongst the 
rich, riches would have been more worshipped than ever. 
See h-ow so many that count themselves good Christians 
honour possession and family and social rank, and I 
doubt hardly get rid of them when they are all swept 
away from them. The furthest most of such reach is to 
count Jesus an exception, and therefore not despise him. 
See how, even in the services of the church, as they call 
them, they will accumulate gorgeousness and cost. Had 
I my way, though I will never seek to rouse men’s 
thoughts about such external things, I would never have 
any vessel used in the eucharist but wooden platter* 
and wooden cups.’* 

u But are we not to serve him with our best 1 ” said 
my wife. 

“ Yes, with our very hearts and souls, with our wills, 
with our absolute being. But all external things should 
be in harmony with the spirit of his revelation. And 
if God chose that his son should visit the earth in 
homely fashion, in homely fashion likewise should be 
everything that enforces and commemorates that revela- 
tion. All church-forms should be on the other side 
from show and expense. Let the money go to build 
decent houses for God’s poor, not to give them his 
hoiy bread and wine out of silver and gold and precious 
stones — stealing from the significance of the content by 
the meretricious grandeur of the contment. I would send 
all the church-plate to fight the devil with his own 
weapons in our overcrowded cities, and in our villages 


5 * 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


where the husbandmen are housed like swine, by giving 
them room to be clean, and decent air fr:>m heaven to 
breathe. When the people find the clergy thus m 
earnest, they will follow them fast enough, and the 
money will come in like salt and oil upon the sacrifice. 
I would there were a few of our dignitaries that could 
think grandly about things, even as Jesus thought — 
even as God thought when he sent him. There are 
many of them willing to stand any amount of persecu- 
tion about trifles : the same enthusiasm directed by high 
thoughts about the kingdom of heaven as within men 
and not around them, would redeem a vast region from 
that indifference which comes of judging the gospel of 
God by the church of Christ with its phylacteries and 
hems.” 

“There is one thing,” said Wynnie, after a pause, 
“that I have often thought about — why it was necessary 
for Jesus to come as a baby : he could not do anything 
for so long.” 

“ First, I would answer, Wynnie, that if you would tell 
me why it is necessary for all of us to come as babies, it 
would be less necessary for me to tell you why he came 
so : whatever was human must be his. But I would say 
next, Are you sure that he could not do anything for so 
long? Does a baby do nothing? Ask mamma there. 
Is it for nothing that the mother lifts up such, heartfuls 
of thanks to God for the baby on her knee ? Is it nothing 
that the baby opens such fountains of love in almost all 
the hearts around ? Ah ! you do not think how much 
every baby has to do with the saving of the world — the 


A SUNDAY EVENING. 


53 


saving of it from selfishness, and folly, and greed. And 
for Jesus, was he not going to establish the reign of love 
in the earth ? How could he do better than begin from 
babyhood i He had to lay hold of the heart of the 
world : how could he do better than begin with his 
mother’s — the best one in it. Through his mother’s love 
first, he grew into the world. It was first by the door of 
all the holy relations of the family that he entered the 
human world, laying hold of mother, father, brothers, 
sisters, all his friends ; then by the door of labour, for 
he took his share of his father’s work ; then, when he 
was thirty years of age, by the door of teaching — by kind 
deeds, and sufferings, and through all by obedience unto 
the death. You must not think little of the grand thirty 
years wherein he got ready for the chief work to follow. 
You must not think that while he was thus preparing for 
his public ministrations, he was not all the time saving 
the world, even by that which he was in the midst of it, 
ever laying hold of it more and more. These were things 
not so easy to tell. And you must remember that owi 
records are very scanty. It is a small biography we have 
of a man who became — to say nothing more — the Man 
of the world — the Son of Man. No doubt it is enough, 
or God would have told us more ; but surely we are not to 
suppose that there was nothing significant, nothing of 
saving power in that which we are not told. Charlie, 
wouldn’t you have liked to see the little baby Jesus 1” 

“Yes, that I would. I would have given him my 
white rabbit with the pink eyes.” 

“That is what the great painter Titian must have 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


54 


thought, Charlie ; for he has painted him playing with t 
white rabbit, — not such a pretty one as yours.” 

“ I would have carried him about all day,” said Dora, 
“as little Henny Parsons does her baby-brother.” 

“ Did he have any brother or sister to carry him about, 
papa ? ” asked Harry. 

“ No, my boy ; for he was the eldest. But you may 
be pretty sure he carried about his brothers and sisters 
that came after him.” 

* Wouldn’t he take care of them, just ! ” said Charlie. 

“ I wish I had been one of them,” said Constance. 

“You are one of them, my Connie. Now he is so 
great and so strong that he can carry father and mother 
and all of us in his bosom.” 

Then we sung a child’s hymn in praise of the God 
of little children, and the little ones went to bed. 
Constance was tired now, and we left her with Wynnie. 
We too went early to bed. 

About midnight my wife and I awoke together — at 
least neither knew which waked the other. The wind 
was still raving about the house, with lulls between its 
charges. 

“ There ’s a child crying ! ” said my wife, starting up, 

I sat up too, and listened. 

“ There is some creature,” I granted. 

“ It is an infant,” insisted my wife. “ It can’t be either 
of the boys.” 

I was out of bed in a moment, and my wife the same 
instant. We hurried on some of our clothes, going to 
thp windows and listening as we did so. We seemed to 


A SUNDAY EVENING 


55 


hear the wailing through the loudest of the wind, and 
in the lulls were sure of it. But it grew fainter as we 
listened. The night was pitch dark. I got a lantern, 
and hurried out. I went round the house till I came 
under our bed-room windows, and there listened. I 
heard it, but not so clearly as before. I set out as well 
as I could judge in the direction of the sound. I could 
find nothing. My lantern lighted only a few yards around 
me, and the wind was so strong that it blew through 
every chink, and threatened momently to blow it out. 
My wife was by my side before I knew she was coming. 

“ My dear ! ” I said, “ it is not fit for you to be out.” 

u It is as fit for me as for a child, anyhow,” she 
answered. “ Do listen.” 

It was certainly no time for expostulation. All the 
mother was awake in Ethelwyn’s bosom. It would have 
been cruelty to make her go in, though she was indeed 
ill fitted to encounter such a night- wind. 

Another wail reached us. It seemed to come from a 
thicket at one corner of the lawn. We hurried thither. 
Again a cry, and we knew we were much nearer to it. 
Searching and searching we went. 

“ There it is ! ” Ethelwyn almost screamed, as the 
feeble light of the lantern fell on a dark bundle of some- 
thing under a bush. She caught at it. It gave another 
pitiful wail — the poor baby of some tramp, rolled up in a 
dirty, ragged shawl, and tied round with a bit of string, as if 
it had been a parcel of clouts. She set off running with 
it to the house, and I followed, much fearing she would 
miss her way in the dark, and falL I could hardly get 


56 


THE SEABOARD PARIS* 


up with her, so eager was she to save the child. She 
darted up to her own room, where the fire was not yet 
out. 

“ Run to the kitchen, Harry, and get some hot water. 
Take the two jugs there — you can empty them in the 
sink : you won’t know where to find anything. There 
will be plenty in the boiler.” 

By the time I returned with the hot water, she had 
taken off the child’s covering, and was sitting with it, 
wrapped in a blanket, before the fire. The little thing 
w r as cold as a stone, and now silent and motionless. We 
had found it just in time. Ethelwyn ordered me about 
as if I had been a nursemaid. I poured the hot water 
into a foot-bath. 

“Some cold water, Harry. You would boil the 
child.” 

“ You made me throw away the cold water,” I said, 
laughing. 

“ There ’s some in the bottles,” she returned. u Make 
haste.” 

I did try to make haste, but I could not be quick 
enough to satisfy Ethelwyn. 

“ The child will be dead,” she cried, “ before we get it 
in the water.” 

She had its rags off in a moment — there was very 
little to remove after the shawl. How white the little 
thing was, though dreadfully neglected ! It was a girl — 
not more than a few weeks old, we agreed. Her little 
heart was still beating feebly; and as she was a well- 
made, apparently healthy infant, we had every hope oi 


A SUNDAY EVENING. 


57 


recovering her. And we were not disappointed. She 
began to move her little legs and arms with short, con- 
vulsive motions. 

“ Do you know where the dairy is, Harry?” asked my 
wife, with no great compliment to my bumps of locality, 
which I bad always flattered myself were beyond the 
average in development. 

“ I think I do,” I answered. 

u Could you tell which was this night’s milk now ? * 

“ There will be less cream on it,” I answered. 

“Bring a little of that and some more hot water. I’ve 
got some sugar here. I wish we had a bottle.” 

I executed her commands faithfully. By the time I 
returned the child was lying on her lap, clean and dry — 
a fine baby I thought. Ethelwyn went on talking to 
her, and praising her as if she had not only been the 
finest specimen of mortality in the world, but her own 
child to boot. She got her to -take a few spoonfuls 
of milk and water, and then the little thing fell fast 
asleep. 

Ethelwyn’s nursing days were not so far gone by that 
she did not know where her baby’s-clothes were. She 
gave me the child, and going to a wardrobe in the room, 
brought out some night-things, and put them on. I 
could not understand in the least why the sleeping dar- 
ling must be indued with little chemise, and flannel, and 
nightgown, and I do not know what all, requiring a 
world of nice care, and a hundred turnings to and fro, 
now on its little stomach, now on its back, now sitting 
up, now lying down, when it would have slept just as 


S3 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


well, and I venture to think much more comfortably, if 
laid in soft blankets and well covered over. But I had 
never ventured to interfere with any of my own children, 
devoutly believing up to this moment, though in a dim 
unquestioning way, that there must be some hidden 
feminine wisdom in the whole process ; and now that I 
had begun to question it I found that my opportunity 
had long gone by, if I had ever had one. And after all 
there may be some reason for it, though I confess I do 
strongly suspect that all these matters are so wonderfully 
complicated in order that the girl left in the woman may 
have her heart’s content of playing with her doll ; just 
as the woman hid in the girl expends no end of lovely 
affection upon the dull stupidity of wooden cheeks and 
a body of sawdust But it was a delight to my heart to 
see how Ethelwyn could not be satisfied without treating 
the foundling in precisely the same fashion as one of 
her own. And if this was a necessary preparation for 
what should follow, I would be the very last to complain 
of it 

We went to bed again, and the forsaken child of some 
half-animal mother, now perhaps asleep in some filthy 
lodging for tramps, lay in my Ethelwyn’s bosom. I 
loved her the more for it; though, I confess, it would 
have been very painful to me had she shown it possible 
for her to treat the baby otherwise, especially after what 
we had been talking about that same evening. 

So we had another child in the house, and nobody 
knew anything about it but ourselves two. The house- 
hold had never been disturbed by all the going and 


A SUNDAY EVENING. 


59 


coming. After everything had been done for her, we 
had a good laugh over the whole matter. Then Ethel- 
wyn fell a-crying. 

“ Pray for the poor thing, Harry,” she sobbed, “before 
you come to bed.” 

I knelt down, and said — 

“ O Lord our Father, this is as much thy child and 
as certainly sent to us as if she had been born of us. 
Help us to keep the child for thee. Take thou care of 
thy own, and teach us what to do with her, and how to 
order our ways towards her.” 

Then I said to Ethelwyn — 

“ We will not say one word more about it to night. 
You must try to go to sleep. I dare say the little thing 
will sleep till the morning, and I am sure I shall if she 
does. Good-night, my love. You are a true mother. 
Mind you go to sleep.” 

“ I am half asleep already, Harry. Good-night,” she 
returned. 

I know nothing more about anything till I woke 
in the morning, except that I had a dream, which I 
have not made up my mind yet whether I shall tell or 
not. We slept soundly — God’s baby and all 


CHAPTER V. 


MY DREAM. 

THINK I will tell the dream I had. I cannot 
well account for the beginning of it : the end 
will appear sufficiently explicable to those 
who are quite satisfied that they get rid of 
the mystery of a thing when they can associate it with 
something else with which they are familiar. Such do 
not care to see that the thing with which they associate 
it may be as mysterious as the other. For although use 
too often destroys marvel, it cannot destroy the marvel- 
lous. The origin of our thoughts is just as wonderful as 
the origin of our dreams. 

In my dream I found myself in a pleasant field full 
of daisies and white clover. The sun was setting. The 
wind was going one way, and the shadows another. I 
felt rather tired, I neither knew nor thought why. With 
nn old man’s prudence, I would not sit down upon the 
grass, but looked about for a more suitable seat Then 



MY DREAM. 


61 


I saw, for often in our dreams there is an immediate 
response to our wishes, a long, rather narrow stone lying 
a few yards from me. I wondered how it could have 
come there, for there were no mountains or rocks near s 
the field was part of a level country. Carelessly, I sat 
down upon it astride, and watched the setting of the 
sun. Somehow I fancied that his light was more sor- 
rowful than the light of the setting sun should be, and 
I began to feel very heavy at the heart. No sooner had 
the last brilliant spark of his light vanished, than I felt 
the stone under me begin to move. With the inactivity 
of a dreamer, however, I did not care to rise, but 
wondered only what would come next. My seat, after 
several strange tumbling motions, seemed to rise into 
the air a little way, and then I found that I was astride 
of a gaunt, bony horse — a skeleton horse almost, only 
he had a gray skin on him. He began, apparently with 
pain, as if his joints were all but too stiff to move, to go 
forward in the direction in which he found himself. I 
kept my scat. Indeed, I never thought of dismount- 
ing. I was going on to meet what might come. Slowly, 
feebly, trembling at every step, the strange steed went, 
and as he went his joints seemed to become less stiff, 
and he went a little faster. All at once I found that the 
pleasant field had vanished, and that we were on the 
borders of a moor. Straight forward the horse carried 
me, and the moor grow very rough, and he went stumb- 
ling dreadfully, but always recovering himself. Every 
moment it seemed as if he would fall to rise no more, 
but as often he found fresh footing. At length the 


62 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


surface became a little smoother, and he began a 
horrible canter which lasted till he reached a low, 
broken wall, over which he half walked, half fell into 
what was plainly an ancient neglected churchyard. The 
mounds were low and covered with rank grass. In 
some parts, hollows had taken the place of mounds. 
Gravestones lay in every position except the level 01 
the upright, and broken masses of monuments were 
scattered about. My horse bore me into the midst of 
it, and there, slow and stiff as he had risen, he lay down 
again. Once more I was astride of a long narrow stone. 
And now I found that it was an ancient gravestone which 
I knew well in a certain Sussex churchyard, the top 
of it carved into the rough resemblance of a human 
skeleton — that of a man, tradition said, who had been 
killed by a serpent that came out of a bottomless pool 
in the next field. How long I sat there I do not know; 
but at last I saw the faint gray light of morning begin 
to appear in front of me. The horse of death had carried 
me eastward. The dawn grew over the top of a hill that 
here rose against the horizon. But it was a wild dreary 
dawn — a blot of gray first, which then stretched into 
long lines of dreary yellow and gray, looking more like a 
blasted and withered sunset than a fresh sunrise. And 
well it suited that waste, wide, deserted churchyard, if 
churchyard I ought to call it where no church was to be 
seen — only a vast hideous square of graves. Before me 
I noticed especially one old grave, the flat stone of 
which had broken in two and sunk in the middle. 
While I sat with my eyes fixed on this stone, it began 


MY DREAM 


63 


to move ; the crack in the middle closed, then widened 
again as the two halves of the stone were lifted up, and 
flung outward, like the two halves of a folding door. 
From the grave rose a little child, smiling such perfect 
contentment as if he had just come from kissing his 
mother. His little arms had flung the stones apart, and 
as he stood on the edge of the grave next to me, they 
remained outspread from the action for a moment, as 
if blessing the sleeping people. Then he came towards 
me with the same smile, and took my hand. I rose, 
and he led me away over another broken wall towards 
the hill that lay before us. And as we went the sun 
came nearer, the pale yellow bars flushed into orange 
and rosy red, till at length the edges of the clouds were 
swept with an agony of golden light, which even my 
dreamy eyes could not endure, and I awoke weeping 
for joy. 

This waking woke my wife, who said in some 
alarm — 

“ What is the matter, husband ?” 

So I told her my dream, and how in my sleep my 
gladness had overcome me. 

“ It was this little darling that set you dreaming so/' 
the said, and turning, put the baby in my arm* 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE NEW BABY. 

WILL not attempt to describe the astonish- 
ment of the members of our household, each 
in succession, as the news of the child spread 
Charlie was heard shouting across the stable- 
yard to his brother — 

“ Harry, Harry ! Mamma has got a new baby. Isn’t 
it jolly?” 

“ Where did she get it ? ” cried Harry in return. 

“In the parsley-bed, I suppose,” answered Charlie, 
and was nearer right than usual ; for the information on 
which his conclusion was founded had no doubt been 
imparted as belonging to the history of the human 
race. 

But my reader can easily imagine the utter bewilderment 
of those of the family whose knowledge of human affairs 
would not allow of their curiosity being so easily satisfied 
as that of the boys. In them was exemplified that con- 



THE NEW BABY. 


*5 


fusion of the intellectual being which is produced by the 
witness of incontestable truth to a thing incredible — in 
which case the probability always is, that the incredibility 
results from something in the mind of the hearer falsely 
associated with and disturbing the true perception of the 
thing to which witness is borne. 

Nor was the astonishment confined to the family, for 
it spread over the parish that Mrs Walton had got an- 
other baby. And so, indeed, she had And seldom has 
baby met with a more hearty welcome than this baby 
met with from every one of our family. They hugged it 
first, and then asked questions. And that, I say, xs the 
right way of receiving every good gift of God. Ask what 
questions you will, but when you see that the gift is a 
good one, make sure that you take it. There is plenty 
of time for you to ask questions afterwards. Then the 
better you love the gift, the more ready you will be to 
ask, and the more fearless in asking. 

The truth, however, soon became known. And then, 
strange to relate, we began to receive visits of condol- 
ence. Oh ! that poor baby ! how it was frowned upon, 
and how it had heads shaken over it, just because it was 
not Ethelwyn’s baby! It could not help that, poor 
darling! 

“Of course, you’ll give information to the police,” 
said, I am sorry to say, one of my brethren in the neigh- 
bourhood, who had the misfortune to be a magistrate as 
well. 

u Why ? ” I asked. 


66 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ Why ! That they may discover the parents, to be 
sure/’ 

“ Wouldn’t it be as hard a matter to prove the parent- 
age, as it would be easy to suspect it 1 ” I asked. “ And 
just think what it would be to give the baby to a woman 
who not only did not want her, but who was not her 
mother. If her own mother came to claim her now, 
I don’t say I would refuse her, but I should think twice 
about giving her up after she had once abandoned her 
for a whole night in the open air. In fact, I don’t want 
the parents.” 

** But you don’t want the child.” 

“ How do you know that! ” I returned — rather rudely, 
I am afraid, for I am easily annoyed at anything that 
seems to me heartless — about children especially. 

“ Oh ! of course, if you want to have an orphan asylum 
of your own, no one has a right to interfere. But you 
ought to consider other people.” 

“ That is just what I thought I was doing,” I answered ; 
but he went on without heeding my reply — 

“ We shall all be having babies left at our doors, and 
some of us are not so fond of them as you are. Re- 
member, you are your brother’s keeper.” 

“And my sister’s too,” I answered. “And if the 
question lies between keeping a big, burly brother like 
you, and a tiny, wee sister like that, I venture to choose 
for myself.” 

“ She ought to go to the workhouse,” said the magis- 
trate — a friendly, good-natured man enough in ordinary 
«^and rising, he took his hat and departed. 


THE NEW BABY. 


67 


This man had no children. So he was — or was not, 
so much to blame. Which? / say the latter. 

Some of Ethelwyn’s friends were no less positive about 
her duty in the affair. I happened to go into the draw- 
ing room during the visit of one of them — Miss Bowdler. 

“ But, my dear Mrs Walton,” she was saying, “ you ’ll 
be having all the tramps in England leaving their babies 
at your door.” 

“ Tire better for the babies,” interposed I, laughing. 

“ But you don’t think of your wife, Mr Walton.” 

“ Don’t I ? I thought I did,” I returned, drily. 

“ Depend upon it, you ’ll repe it it.” 

“ I hope I shall never repent of anything but what is 
bad.” 

“Ah! but, really ! it’s not a thing to be made game of.” 

“ Certainly not. The baby shall be treated with all 
due respect in this house.” 

“What a provoking man you are ! You know whac 
I mean well enough.” 

“ As well as I choose to know — certainly,” I answered. 

This lady was one of my oldest parishioners, and took 
liberties for which she had no other justification, except 
indeed an unhesitating belief in the superior rectitude of 
whatever came into her own head can be counted as 
one. When she was gone, my wife turned to me with a 
half-comic, half-anxious look, and said — 

“ But it would be rather alarming, Harry, if this were 
to get abroad, and we couldn’t go out at the door in the 
morning without being in danger of stepping on a baby 
on the door-step.” 


68 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“You might as well have said, when you were going 
to be married, ‘ If God should send me twenty children, 
what ever should I do V He who sent us this one can 
surely prevent any more from coming than he wants to 
come. All that we have to think of is to do right — not 
the consequences of doing right. But leaving all that 
aside, you must not suppose that wandering mothers 
have not even the attachment of animals to their off- 
spring. There are not so many that are willing to part 
with their babies as all that would come to. If you 
believe that God sent this one, that is enough for the 
present. If he should send another, we should know 
by that that we had to take it in.” 

My wife said the baby was a beauty. I could see that 
she was a plump, well-to-do baby ; and being by nature 
no particular lover of babies as babies — that is, feeling 
none of the inclination of mothers and nurses and eldei 
sisters to eat them, or rather, perhaps, loving more *or 
what I believed than what I saw — that was all I could 
pretend to discover. But even the aforementioned 
elderly parishioner was compelled to allow before three 
months were over that little Theodora — for we turned the 
name of my youngest daughter upside down for her— 
“ was a proper child.” To none, however, did she seem 
to bring so much delight as to our dear Constance. 
Oftener than not, when I went into her room, I found 
the sleepy useless little thing lying beside her on the 
bed, and her staring at it with such lovirg eyes ! How it 
began, I do not know, but it came at last to be called 
Connie’s Dora, or Miss Connie’s baby, a 1 ! over the houses 


THE NEW BABY. 


69 


and nothing pleased Connie better. Not till she saw 
this did her old nurse take quite kindly to the infant ; for 
she regarded her as an interloper, who had no right to the 
tenderness which was lavished upon her. But she had 
no sooner given in than the baby began to grow dear to 
her as well as to the rest. In fact, the house was ere long 
full of nurses. The staff included every one but myself, 
who only occasionally, at the entreaty of some one or 
other of the younger ones, took her in my arms. 

But before she was three months old, anxious thoughts 
began to intrude, all centring round the question m what 
manner the child was to be brought up. Certainly there 
was time enough to think of this, as Ethelwyn constantly 
reminded me; but what made me anxious was that I could 
not discover the principle that ought to guide me. Now 
r.o one can tell how soon a principle in such a case will 
begin, even unconsciously, to operate ; and the danger 
was that the moment when it ought to begin to operate 
would be long past before the principle was discovered, ex- 
cept I did what I could now to find it out. I had again 
and again to remind myself that there was no cause for 
anxiety; for that I might certainly claim the enlighten- 
ment which all who want to do right are sure to receive ; 
but still I continued uneasy just from feeling a vacancy 
where a principle ought to have been. 


CHAPTER VII. 


ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING. 



URING all this time Co-nie made no ?cry 
perceptible progress— in the recovery of her 
bodily powers, I mean, for her heart and 
mind advanced remarkably. We held our 
Sunday evening assemblies in her room pretty regularly, 
my occasional absence in the exercise of my duties alone 
interfering with them. In connexion with one of these 
I will show how I came at length to make up my mind 
as to what I would endeavour to keep befoie me as my 
object in the training of little Theodora, always remem- 
bering that my preparation might be used for a very 
different end from what I purposed. If my intention 
was right, the fact that it might be turned aside would 
not trouble me. 

We had spoken a good deal together about the infancy 
and childhood of Jesus, about the shepherds, and the wise 
men, and the star in the east, and the children of Bethle- 



ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING. 


71 


hem. I encouraged the thoughts of all the children to 
rest and brood upon the fragments that are given us, 
and, believing that the imagination is one of the most 
powerful of all the faculties for aiding the growth of the 
truth in the mind, I would ask them questions as to what 
they thought he might have said or done in ordinary 
family occurrences, thus giving a reality in their minds 
to this part of his history, and trying to rouse in them 
a habit of referring their conduct to the standard of his. 
If we do not thus employ our imagination on sacred 
things, his example can be of no use to us except in 
exactly corresponding circumstances — and when can 
such occur from one end to another of our lives 1 The 
very effort to think how he would have done, is a 
wonderful purifier of the conscience, and, even if the 
conclusion arrived at should not be correct from lack 
of sufficient knowledge of his character and principles, 
it will be better than any that can be arrived at without 
this inquiry. Besides, the asking of such questions gave 
me good opportunity, through the answers they returned, 
of seeing what their notions of Jesus and of duty were, 
and thus of discovering how to help the dawn of the 
light in their growing minds. Nor let any one fear that 
such employment of the divine gift of imagination will 
lead to foolish vagaries and useless inventions : while 
the object is to discover the right way — the truth — there 
is little danger of that. Besides, there I was to help 
hereby in the actual training of their imaginations to 
truth and wisdom. To aid in this, I told them some of 
the stories that were circulated about him in the early 


7 * 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


centuries of the church, but which the church has re- 
jected as of no authority; and I showed them how some 
of them could not be true, because they were so unlike 
those words and actions which we had the best of reasons 
for receiving as true; and how one or two of them might 
be true — though, considering the company in which we 
found them, we could say nothing for certain concerning 
them. And such wise things as those children said 
sometimes ! It is marvellous how children can reach 
the heart of the truth at once. Their utterances are 
sometimes entirely concordant with the results arrived 
at through years of thought by the earnest mind — results 
which no mind would ever arrive at save by virtue of the 
child-like in it. 

Well, then, upon this evening I read to them the story 
of the boy Jesus in the temple. Then I sought to 
make the story more real to them by dwelling a little on 
the growing fears of his parents as they went from group 
to group of their friends, tracing back the road towards 
Jerusalem, and asking every fresh company they knew ii 
they had seen their boy, till at length they were in great 
trouble when they could not find him even in Jerusalem. 
Then came the delight of his mother when she did find 
him at last, and his answer to what she said. Now, 
while I thus lingered over the simple story, my children 
had put many questions to me about Jesus being a boy, 
and not seeming to know things which, if he was God, he 
must have known, they thought. To some of these I 
had just to reply, that I did not understand myself, and 
therefore could not teach them ; to others, that I could 


ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING. 


73 


explain them, but that they were not yet, some of them, 
old enough to receive and understand my explanation: 
while others I did my best to answer as simply as I 
could. But at this point we arrived at a question put 
by Wynnie, to answer which aright I considered of the 
greatest importance. Wynnie said, — 

“That is just one of the things about Jesus that have 
always troubled me, papa.” 

“What is, my dear?” I said; for although I thought 
I knew well enough what she meant, I wished her to 
set it forth in her own words, both for her own sake, 
and the sake of the others, who would probably under- 
stand the difficulty much better if she presented it her- 
self. 

“ I mean that he spoke to his mother * 

“ Why don’t you say mamma , Wynnie?” said Charlie. 
u she was his own mamma, wasn’t she, papa?” 

“Yes, my dear; but don’t you know that the shoe- 
maker’s children down in the village always call their 
mamma mother ? ” 

“ Yes ; but they are shoemaker’s children.” 

“ Well, Jesus was one of that class of people. He 
was the son of a carpenter. He called his mamma 
mother. But, Charlie, mother is the more beautiful word 
of the two, by a great deal, I think. Lady is a very 
pretty word ; but woman is a very beautiful word. Just 
so with mamma and mother. Mamma is pretty, but 
mother is beautiful.” 

“ Why don’t we always say mother then?” 

"Just because it is the most beautiful, and so we 


74 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


keep it for Sundays — that is, for the more solemn times 
#f life. We don’t want it to get common to us with too 
much use. We may think it as much as we like ; think- 
ing does not spoil it ; but saying spoils many things, and 
especially beautiful words. Now we must let Wynnie 
finish what she was saying.” 

“ I was saying, papa, that I can’t help feeling as if— 
I know it can’t be true — but I feel as if Jesus spoke 
unkindly to his mother when he said that to her.” 

I looked at the page and read the words, “ How is it 
that ye sought me ? wist ye not that I must be about my 
Father’s business 1” And I sat silent for a while. 

“ Why don’t you peak, papa?” said Harry. 

“I am sitting wondering at myself, Harry, I said. 
“ Long after I was your age, Wynnie, I remember quite 
well that those words troubled me as they now trouble 
you. But when I read them over now, they seemed to 
me so lovely that I could hardly read them aloud. I 
can recall the fact that they troubled me, but the mode 
of the fact I scarcely can recall. I can hardly see now 
wherein lay the hurt or offence the words gave me. 
And why is that ? Simply because I understand them 
now, and I did not understand them then. I took them 
as uttered with a tone of reproof : now I hear them as 
uttered with a tone of loving surprise. But really I 
cannot feel sure what it was that I did not like. And I 
am confident it is so with a great many things that we 
reject We reject them simply because we do not 
understand them. Therefore, indeed, we cannot with 
truth be said to reject them at all. It is some false 


ANOTHER SUNDAY KVENINGL 


75 


appearance that we reject Some of the grandest things 
in the whole realm of truth look repellent to us, and 
we turn away from them, simply because we are not— r 
to use a familiar phrase — we are not up to them. They 
appear to us, therefore, to be what they are not. In- 
struction sounds to the proud man like reproof ; illumi- 
nation comes on the vain man like scorn ; the manifes- 
tation of a higher condition of motive and action than 
his own, falls on the self-esteeming like condemnation ; 
but it is consciousness and conscience working together 
that produce this impression ; the result is from the man 
himself, not from the higher source. From the truth 
comes the power, but the shape it assumes to the man 
is from the man himself.” 

“You are quite beyond me now, papa,” said Wynnie. 

“ Well, my dear,” I answered, “ I will return to the 
words of the boy Jesus, instead of talking more about 
them, and when I have shown you what they mean, I 
think you will allow that that feeling you have about 
them is all and altogether an illusion.” 

“ There is one thing first,” said Connie, “ that I want 
to understand. You said the words of Jesus rather 
indicated surprise. But how could he be surprised at 
anything 1 If he was God, he must have known every- 
thing.” 

« He tells us himself that he did not know everything. 
He says once that even he did not know one thing— 
only the Father knew it.” 

“ But how could that be if he was God ? ” 

“ My dear, that is one of the things that it seems to 


76 


THE SI ABOARD PARISH. 


me impossible I should understand. Certainly I think 
his trial as a man would not have been perfect had \ e 
known everything. He, too, had to live by faith in the 
Father. And remember that for the Divine Sonship on 
earth perfect knowledge was not necessary, only perfect 
confidence, absolute obedience, utter holiness. There 
is a great tendency in our sinful natures to put knowledge 
and power on a level with goodness. It was one of the 
lessons of our Lord’s life that they are not so ; that the 
one grand thing in humanity is faith in God ; that the 
highest in God is his truth, his goodness, his right- 
ness. But if Jesus was a real man, and no mere appear- 
ance of a man, is it any wonder that, with a heart full 
to the brim of the love of God, he should be for a 
moment surprised that his mother, whom he loved so 
dearly, the best human being he knew, should not have 
taken it as a matter of course that if he was not with 
her, he must be doing something his Father wanted 
him to do ? For this is just what his answer means. 
To turn it into the ordinary speech of our day, it is just 
this : * Why did you look for me ! Didn’t you know 
that I must of course be doing something my Father 
had given me to do V Just think of the quiet sweetness 
of confidence in this. And think what a life his must 
have been up to that twelfth year of his, that such an 
expostulation with his mother was justified. It must 
have had reference to a good many things that had 
passed before then, which ought to have been sufficient 
to make Mary conclude that her missing boy must be 
about God’s business somewhere. If her heart had 


ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING. 


77 


been as full of God and God’s business as his, she 
would not have been in the least uneasy about him. 
And here is the lesson of his whole life : it was all hi* 
Father’s business. The boy’s mind and hands were 
full of it. The man’s mind and hands were full of it 
And the risen conqueror was full of it still. For the 
Father’s business is everything, and includes all work 
that is worth doing. We may say in a full grand sense 
that there is nothing but the Father and his business.” 

“ But we have so many things to do that are not hi* 
business,” said Wynnie, with a sigh of oppression. 

i( Not one, my darling. If anything is not his busi- 
ness, you not only have not to do it, but you ought not 
to do it Your words come from the w’ant of spiritual 
sight. We cannot see the truth in common things — the 
will of God in little every-day affairs, and that is how they 
become so irksome to us. Show a beautiful picture, one 
full of quiet imagination and deep thought, to a common- 
minded man : he will pass it by with some slight remark, 
thinking it very ordinary and commonplace. That is 
because he is commonplace. Because our minds are so 
commonplace, have so little of the divine imagination in 
them, therefore we do not recognize the spiritual meaning 
and worth, we do not perceive the beautiful will of God, « 
in the things required of us, though they are full of it. 
But if we do them we shall thus make acquaintance with 
them, and come to see what is in them. The roughest 
kernel amongst them has a tree of life in its heart.” 

“ I wish he would tell me something to do,” said 
Charlie. “ Wouldn't I do it 1” 


7 » 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


I made no reply, but waited for an opportunity which 
I was pretty sure was at hand, while I carried the matter 
a little further. 

“ But look here, Wynnie ; listen to this,” I said : 
“‘And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, 
and was subject unto them.’ Was that not doing his 
Father’s business too ? Was it not doing the business ol 
his Father in heaven to honour his father and his 
mother, though he knew that his days would not be 
long in that land? Did not his whole teaching, his 
whole doing, rest on the relation of the Son to the Father, 
and surely it was doing his Father’s business then to 
obey his parents — to serve them, to be subject to them. 
It is true that the business God gives a man to do may 
be said to be the peculiar walk in life into which he is 
led, but that is only as distinguishing it from another 
man’s peculiar business. God gives us all our business, 
and the business which is common to humanity is more 
peculiarly God’s business than that which is one man’s 
and not another’s — because it lies nearer the root, and 
is essential. It does not matter whether a man is a 
farmer or a physician, but it greatly matters whether he 
is a good son, a good husband, and so on. O my 
# children !” I said, u if the world could but be brought 
to believe — the world did I say ? — if the best men in 
the world could only see, as God sees it, that service is 
in itself the noblest exercise of human powers ; if they 
could see that God is the hardest worker of all, and 
that his nobility are those who do the most service, 
surelv it would alter the whole asoeot of the church. 


ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING. 


79 


Menial offices, for instance, would soon cease to be 
talked of with that contempt which shows that there is 
no true recognition of the fact that the same principle 
runs through the highest duty and the lowest — that the 
lowest work which God gives a man to do must be in 
its nature noble, as certainly noble as the highest. This 
would destroy condescension, which is the rudeness, yes, 
impertinence, of the higher, as it would destroy insolence, 
which is the rudeness of the lower. He who recognized 
the dignity of his own lower office, would thereby recog- 
nize the superiority of the higher office, and would be 
the last either to envy or degrade it. He would see in 
it his own — only higher, only better, and revere it. But 
I am afraid I have wearied you, my children.” 

“ Oh, no, papa ! ” said the elder ones, while the little 
ones gaped and said nothing. 

I know I am in danger of doing so when I come to 
speak upon this subject . it has such a hold of my heart 
and mind ! — Now, Charlie, my boy, go to bed.” 

But Charlie was very comfortable before the fire, on 
the rug, and did not want to go. First one shoulder 
went up, and then the other, and the corners of his 
mouth went down, as if to keep the balance true. He 
did not move to go. I gave him a few moments to 
recover himself, but as the black frost still endured, I 
thought it was time to hold up a mirror to him. When 
he was a very little boy, he was much in the habit of 
getting out of temper, and then as now, he made a face 
that was hideous to behold ; and to cure him of this. I 
used to make him carry a little mirror about his neck, 


8o 


THE SEABOARD PARISH 


that the means might be always at hand of showing him. 
self to him : it was a sort of artificial conscience which, 
by enabling him to see the picture of his own condition, 
which the face always is, was not unfrequently operative 
in rousing his real conscience, and making him ashamed 
of himself. But now the mirror I wanted to hold up to 
him was a past mood, in the light of which the present 
would show what it was. 

44 Charlie,” I said, “ a little while ago you were wish- 
ing that God would give you something to do. And now 
when he does, you refuse at once, without even thinking 
about it.” 

44 How do you know that God wants me to go to 
bed 1 ” said Charlie, with something of surly impertin- 
ence, which I did not meet with reproof at once because 
there was some sense along with the impudence. 

44 1 know that God wants you to do what I tell you, 
and to do it pleasantly. Do you think the boy Jesus 
would have put on such a face as that — I wish I had the 
little mirror to show it to you — when his mother told 
him it was time to go to bed 1 ” 

And now Charlie began to look ashamed. I left the 
truth to work in him, because I saw it was working. 
Had I not seen that, I should have compelled him to 
go at once, that he might learn the majesty of law. But 
now that his own better self, the self enlightened of the 
light that lighteneth every man that cometh into the 
world, was working, time might well be afforded it to 
work its perfect work. I went on talking to the others. 
In the space of not more than one minute, he rose and 


ANOTHER SUNDAY EVEN ’NO. 


81 


came to me, looking both good and ashamed, and held 
up his face to kiss me, saying, “ Good-night, papa.” I 
bade him good-night, and kissed him more tenderly than 
usual, that he might know that it was all right between 
us. I required no formal apology, no begging of my 
pardon, as some parents think right It seemed enough 
to me that his heart was turned. It is a terrible thing 
to run the risk of changing humility into humiliation. 
Humiliation is one of the proudest conditions in the 
human world. When he felt that it would be a relief to 
say more explicitly, “ Father, I have sinned,” then let 
him say it ; but not till then. To compel manifestation 
is one surest way to check feeling. 

My readers must not judge it silly to record a boy’s 
unwillingness to go to bed. It is precisely the same kind 
of disobedience that some of them are guilty of them- 
selves, and that in things not one whit more important 
than this, only those things happen to be their wish at 
the moment and not Charley’s, and so gain their supe- 
riority. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Theodora’s doom. 

RY not to get weary, respected reader, of so 
much of what I am afraid most people will 
call tiresome preaching. But I know if you 
get anything practicable out of it, you will 
not be so soon tired of it. I promise you more story 
by and by. Only an old man, like an old horse, must 
be allowed to take very much his own way — go his own 
pace, I should have said. I am afraid there must be a 
little more of a similar sort in this chapter. 

On the Monday morning I set out to visit one or two 
people whom the severity of the weather had kept from 
church on the Sunday. The last severe frost, as it turned 
out, of the season, was possessing the earth. The sun 
was low in the wintry sky, and what seemed a very cold 
mist up in the air hid him from the earth. I was walking 
along a path in a field close by a hedge. A tree had 
been cut down, and lay upon the grass. A short di» 



Theodora’s doom. 


*3 


tance from it lay its own figure marked out in hoar-frost 
There alone was there any hoar-frost on the field ; the 
rest was all of the loveliest tenderest green. I will 
not say the figure was such an exact resemblance as a 
photograph would have been ; still it was an indubitable 
likeness. It appeared to the hasty glance tha*t not a 
branch, not a knot of the upper side of the tree at least 
was left unrepresented in shining and glittering whiteness 
upon the green grass. It was very pretty, and, I confess, 
at first very puzzling. I walked on, meditating on the phe- 
nomenon, till at length I found out its cause. The hoar- 
frost had been all over the field in the morning. The 
sun had been shining for a time, and had melted the frost 
away, except where he could only cast a shadow. As he 
rose and rose, the shadow of the tree had shortened and 
come nearer and nearer to its original, growing more and 
more like as it came nearer, while the frost kept disap- 
pearing as the shadow withdrew its protection When 
the shadow extended only to a little way from the tree, 
the clouds came and covered the sun, and there were no 
more shadows, only one great one of the clouds. Then 
the frost shone out in the shape of the vanished shadow. 
It lay at a little distance from the tree, because the tree 
having been only partially lopped, some great stumps of 
boughs held it up from the ground, and thus, when the 
sun was low, his light had shone a little way through be- 
neath, as well as over the trunk. 

My reader needs not be afraid ; I am not going to 
“moralise this spectacle with a thousand similes,” I 
only tell it him as a very pretty phenomenon. But I 


8 4 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


confess I walked on moralizing it. Any new tiling in 
nature — I mean new in regard to my knowledge, of course 
■ — always made me happy ; and I was full of the quiet 
pleasure it had given me and of the thoughts it had 
brought me, when, as I was getting over a stile, whom 
should I see in the next field, coming along the footpath, 
but the lady who had made herself so disagreeable about 
Theodora? The sight was rather a discord in my feeling 
at that moment ; perhaps it would have been so at any 
moment. But I prepared myself to meet her in the 
strength of the good humour which nature had just be- 
stowed upon me. For I fear the failing will go with me to 
the grave that I am very ready to be annoyed, even to the 
loss of my temper, at the urgings of ignoble prudence. 

“ Good morning, Miss Bowdler,” I said. 

“ Good morning, Mr Walton,” she returned. “ I am 
afraid you thought me impertinent the other week ; but 
you know by this time it is only my way.” 

" As such I take it,” I answered, with a smile. 

She did not seem quite satisfied that I did not defend 
her from her own accusation ; but as it was a just one, 
I could not do so. Therefore she went on to repeat the 
offence by way of justification. 

“ It was all for Mrs Walton’s sake. You ought to 
consider her, Mr Walton. She has quite enough to do 
with that dear Connie, who is likely to be an invalid all 
her days — too much to take the trouble of a beggar’s 
brat as w T ell.” 

“ Has Mrs Walton been complaining to you about it, 
Miss Bowdler ? ” I asked. 


Theodora’s doom. 


85 


u Oh, dear, no !” she answered. “ She is far too good 
to complain of anything. That’s just why her friends 
must look after her a bit, Mr Walton.” 

“ Then I beg you won’t speak disrespectfully of my 
little Theodora.” 

“ Oh, dear me ! no. Not at all. I don’t speak dis- 
respectfully of her.” 

“ Even amongst the class of which she comes, * a 
beggar’s brat’ would be regarded as bad language.” 

“ I beg your pardon, I ’m sure, Mr Walton ! If you 
will take offence ” 

“ I do take offence. And you know there is One 
who has given especial warning against offending the 
little ones.” 

Miss Bowdler walked away in high displeasure — let 
me hope in conviction of sin as well. She did not 
appear in church for the next two Sundays. Then she 
came again. But she called very seldom at the Hall 
after this, and I believe my wife was not sorry. 

Now, whether it came in any way from what that lady 
had said as to my wife’s trouble with Constance and 
Theodora together, I can hardly tell ; but before I had 
reached home I had at last got a glimpse of something 
like the right way, as it appeared to me, of bringing up 
Theodora. When I went into the house I looked for my 
wife to have a talk with her about it ; but, indeed, it 
seemed always necessary to find her every time I got 
home. I found her in Connie’s room, as I had expected 
Now although we were never in the habit of making mys* 
teries of things in which there was no mystery, and 


86 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


talked openly before our children, and the more openly 
the older they grew, yet there were times when we 
wanted to have our talks quite alone, especially when we 
had not made up our minds about something. So I 
asked Ethelwyn to walk out with me. 

u I ’m afraid I can’t just this moment, husband,” she 
answered. She was in the way of using that form of ad- 
dress, for she said it meant everything without saying it 
aloud. “ I can’t just this moment, for there is no one 
at liberty to stay with Connie.” 

“ Oh, never mind me, mamma,” said Connie, cheer- 
fully. “Theodora will take care of me,” and she 
looked fondly at the child, who was lying by her side 
fast asleep. 

“ There ! ” I said. And both looked up surprised, for 
neither knew what I meant. “ I will tell you afterwards,” 
I said, laughing. “ Come along, Ethel.” 

“ You can ring the bell, you know, Connie, if you 
should want anything, or your baby should wake up and 
be troublesome. You won’t want me long, will you, hus- 
band?” 

“ I ’m not sure about that You must tell Susan to 
watch for the bell.” 

Susan was the old nurse. 

Ethel put on her hooded cloak, and we went out to 
gether. I took her across to the field where I had seen 
the hoary shadow. The sun had not shone out, and I 
hoped it would be there to gladden her dear eyes as it 
had gladdened mine ; but it was gone. The warmth of 
the sun, without its direct rays, had melted it away, as 


Theodora’s doom. 


87 


sacred influences will sometimes do with other shadows, 
without the mind knowing any more than the grass how 
the shadow departed. There, reader 1 I have got a bit 
of a moral in about it before you knew what I was doing. 
But I was sorry my wife could see it only through my 
eyes and words. Then I told her about Miss Bowdler, 
and what she had said. Ethel was very angry at her 
impertinence in speaking so to me. That was a wife’s 
feeling, you know, and perhaps excusable in the first im- 
pression of the thing. 

“ She seems to think,” she said, “ that she was sent 
into the world to keep other people right instead of her- 
self. X am very glad you set her down, as the maids 
say.” 

“ Oh, I don’t think there *s much harm in her,” I re- 
turned, which was easy generosity, seeing my wife was 
taking my part. “ Indeed, I am not sure that we are 
not both considerably indebted to her ; for it was after I 
met her that a thought came into my head as to how we 
ought to do with Theodora.” 

“ Still troubling yourself about that, husband V* 

“ The longer the difficulty lasts, the more necessary is 
it that it should be met,” I answered. " Our measures 
must begin sometime, and when, who can tell] We 
ought to have them in our heads, or they will never begin 
at all.” 

“ Well, I confess they are rather of a general nature 
at present, — belonging to humanity rather than the indi- 
vidual, as you would say — consisting chiefly in washing, 
dressing, feeding, and apostrophe, varied with lullaby ing, 


88 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


But our hearts are a better place for our measures than 
our heads, aren’t they ?” 

“ Certainly ; I walk corrected. Only there ’s no feat 
about your heart. I ’m not quite so sure about your 
head.” 

“ Thank you, husband. But with you for a head it 
doesn’t matter, does it?” 

“ I don’t know that. People should always strengthen 
the weaker part, for no chain is stronger than its weakest 
link ; no fortification stronger than its most assailable 
point. But seriously, wife, I trust your head nearly, 
though not quite, as much as your heart. Now to go to 
business. There’s one thing we have both made up our 
minds about — that there is to be no concealment with 
the child. God’s fact must be known by her. It would 
be cruel to keep the truth from her, even if it were not 
sure to come upon her with a terrible shock some day. 
She must know from the first, by hearing it talked of — 
not by solemn and private communication — that she 
came out of the shrubbery. That’s settled, is it not ? ” 

“ Certainly. I see that to be the right way,” re- 
fponded Ethelwyn. 

“ Now, are we bound to bring her up exactly as our 
own, or are we not ? ” 

“We are bound to do as well for her as for our own.* 

“Assuredly. But if we brought her up just as our 
own, would that, the facts being as they are, be to do as 
well for her as for our own 1 ” 

“ I doubt it ; for other people would not choose to 
receive her as we have done.” 


THEODORA’S DOOM. 


89 


“That is true. She would be continually reminded of 
her origin. Not that that in itself would be any evil ; 
but as they would do it by excluding or neglecting her, 
or, still worse, by taking liberties with her, it would be a 
great pain. But keeping that out of view, would it be 
good for herself, knowing what she will know, to be thus 
brought up? Would it not be kinder to bring her up in 
a way that would make it easier for her to relieve the 
gratitude which I trust she will feel — not for our sakes — • 
I hope we are above doing anything for the sake of the 
gratitude which will be given for it, and which is so often 
far beyond the worth of the thing done — ” 

“ Alas ! the gratitude of men 
Hath oftener left me mourning,” 

said Ethel. 

“Ah ! you understand that now, my Ethel!” 

“Yes, thank you, I do.” 

“ But we must wish for gratitude for others’ sake, 
though we may be willing to go without it for our own. 
Indeed, gratitude is often just as painful as Wordsworth 
there represents it It makes us so ashamed; makes us 
think how much more we might have done ; how lovely 
a thing it is to give in return for such common gifts as 
ours ; how needy the man or woman must be in whom 
a trifle awakes so much emotion.” 

“Yes; but we must not in justice think that it is 
merely that our little doing seems great to them : it is 
the kindness shown them therein, for which, often, they 
are more grateful than for the gift, though they can’t show 
the difference in their thanks.” 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


OO 


“ And, indeed, are not aware of it themselves, though 
it is so. And yet, the same remarks hold good about 
the kindness as about the gift. But to return to 
Theodora. If we put her in a way of life that would be 
recognizant of whence she came, and how she had been 
brought thence, might it not be better for her? Would 
it not be building on the truth? Would she not be 
happier for it ?” 

“ You are putting general propositions, while all the 
time you have something particular and definite in your 
own mind ; and that is not fair to my place in the con- 
ference,” said Ethel. “ In fact, you think you are trying 
to approach me wisely, in order to persuade, I will not 
say wheedle ; me into something. It ’s a good thing you 
have the harmlessness of the dove, Harry, for you’ve got 
the other thing.” 

“ Well, then, I will be as plain as ever I can be 
only premising that what you call the cunning of the 
serpent ” 

“ Wisdom, Harry, not cunning.” 

* Is only that I like to give my arguments before my 
proposition, But here it is — bare and defenceless, only 
— let me warn you — with a whole battery behind it : it 
is, to bring up little Theodora as a servant to Constance." 

My wife laughed. 

“ Well,” she said, “ for one who says so much about 
not thinking of the morrow, you do look rather far 
forward.” 

“ Not with any anx»ety, however, if only I know that I 
am doing right” 


Theodora’s doom. 


§« 


“ But just think : the child is about three months old.” 

“ Well ; Connie will be none the worse that she is 
being trained for her. I don’t say that she is to com- 
mence her duties at once.” 

“ But Connie may be at the head of a house of her 
owr. long before that.” 

“ The training won’t be lost to the child though. 
But I much fear, my love, that Connie will never be 
herself again. There is no sign of it. And Turner 
does not give much hope.” 

“ Oh ! Harry, Harry, don’t say so. I can’t bear it. 
To think of the darling child lying like that all her 
life!” 

“ It is sad, indeed ; but no such awful misfortune 
surely, Ethel. Haven’t you seen, as well as I, that the 
growth of that cnild’s nature since her accident has been 
marvellous? Ten times rather would I heave her lying 
there such as she is, than have her well and strong and 
silly, with her bonnets inside instead of outside her 
liead.'’ 

“ Yes, but she needn’t have been like that Wynnie 
never will.” 

“Well, but God does all things not only well, but 
best, absolutely best. But just think what it would be in 
any circumstances to have a maid that had begun to wait 
upon her from the first days that she was able to toddle 
after something to fetch it for her.” 

“ Won’t it be like making a slave of her ? *' 

** Won’t it be like giving her a divine freedom from 
the first 1 The lack of service is the ruin of humanity." 


9 * 


THE SEA80APD PARISH. 


“ Eut we can’t train her then like one of our own.” 

“ Why not 1 Could we not give her all the love and 
all the teaching? ” 

“ Because it would not be fair to give her the education 
of a lady, and then make a servant of her/’ 

“ You forget that the service would be part of her 
training from the first ; and she would know no change 
of position in it. When we tell her that she was found 
in the shrubbery, we will add that we think God sent her 
to take care of Constance. I do not believe myself that 
you can have perfect service except from a lady. Do 
not forget the true notion of service as the essence ot 
Christianity, yea, of divinity. It is not education that 
unfits for service : it is the want of it.” 

“Well, I know that the reading girls I have had, have, 
as a rule, served me worse than the rest.” 

“ Would you have called one of those girls educated ? 
Or even if they had been educated, as any of them might 
well have been, better than nine-tenths of the girls that 
go to boarding-schools, you must remember that they 
had never been taught service — the highest accomplish- 
ment of all. To that everything aids, when any true 
feeling of it is there. Eut for service of this high sort, 
the education must begin with the beginning of the 
dawn of will. How often have you wished that you 
had servants who would believe in you, and serve you 
with the same truth with which you regarded them l 
The servants born in a man’s house in the old times were 
more like his children than his servants. Here is a 
chance for you, as it were of a servant born in youi 


THEODORA’S DOOM. 


93 


own house. Connie loves the child : the child will love 
Connie, and find her delight in serving her like a little 
cherub. Not one of the maids to whom you have re* 
ferred had ever been taught to think service other than 
an unavoidable necessity, the end of life being to serve 
yourself, not to serve others ; and hence most of them 
would escape from it by any marriage almost that they 
had a chance of making. I don’t say all servants are 
like that; but I do think that most of them are. I 
know very well that most mistresses are as much to 
blame for this result as the servants are; but we are not 
talking about them. Servants now-a-days despise work, 
and yet are forced to do it — a most degrading condition 
to be in. But they would not be in any better condi- 
tion if delivered from the work. The lady who despises 
work is in as bad a condition as they are. The only 
way to set them free is to get them to regard service 
not only as their duty, but as therefore honourable, 
and besides and beyond this, in its own nature divine. 
In America, the very name of servant is repudiated as 
inconsistent with human dignity. There is no dignity 
but of service. How different the whole notion of train- 
ing is now from what it was in the middle ages ! Ser- 
vice was honourable then. No doubt we have made 
progress as a whole, but in some things we have degene- 
rated sadly. The first thing taught then was how to 
•erve. No man could rise to the honour of knighthood 
without service. A nobleman’s son even had to wait on 
his father, or to go into the family of another nobleman, 
and wait upon him as a page, standing behind his chair 


94 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


at dinner. This was an honour. No notion of degra- 
dation was in it. It was a necessary step to higher 
honour. And what was the next higher honour? To 
be set free from service? No. To serve in the harder 
service of the field; to be a squire to some noble 
knight ; to tend his horse, to clean his armour, to see 
that every rivet was sound, every buckle true, every 
strap strong; to ride behind him and carry his spear, 
and if more than one attacked him, to rush to his aid. 
This service was the more honourable because it was 
harder, and was the next step to higher honour yet. 
And what was this higher honour? That of knighthood. 
Wherein did this knighthood consist ? The very word 
means simply service. And for what was the knight thus 
waited upon by his squire ? That he might be free to do 
as he pleased? No, but that he might be free to be the 
servant of all. By being a squire first, the servant of one, 
he learned to rise to the higher rank, that of servant of 
all. His horse was tended, his armour observed, his 
sword and spear and shield held to his hand, that he 
might have no trouble looking after himself, but might 
be free, strong, unwearied, to shoot like an arrow to 
the rescue of any and every one who needed his ready 
aid. There was a grand heart of Christianity in that 
oid chivalry, notwithstanding all its abuses, which must 
be no more laid to its charge than the burning of Jews 
and heretics to Christianity. It was the lack of it, not 
the presence of it, that occasioned the abuses that co- 
existed with it. Train our Theodora as a holy child- 
servant, and there will be no need to restrain any 


Theodora’s doom. 


95 


impulse of wise affection from pouring itself forth upon 
her. My firm belief is. that we should then love and 
honour her far more than if we made her just like one 
of our own.’* 

“ But what if she $iould turn out utterly unfit fof 

itr 

“ Ah ! then would come an obstacle. But it will not 
come till that discovery is made.” 

** But if we should be going wrong all the time ?” 

u Now there comes the kind of care that never troubles 
me, and which I so strongly object to. It won’t hurt 
her anyhow. And we ought always to act upon the 
ideal; it is the only safe ground of action. When thst 
which contradicts and resists, and would ruin our idea/, 
opposes us, then we must take measures ; but not till 
then can we take measures, or know what measures i\ 
may be necessary to take. But the ideal itself is the 
only thing worth striving after. Remember what our 
Lord himself said : ‘ Be ye therefore perfect, even as 
your Father which is in heaven is perfect.’ ” 

“ Well, I will think about it, Harry. There is time 
enough.” 

“ Plenty. No time only not to think about it. The 
more you think about it the better. If a thing be a good 
thing, the more you think about it the better it will 
look ; for its real nature will go on coming out and 
showing itself. I cannot doubt that you will soon see 
how good it is.” 

We then went home. It was only two days after that 
my wife said to me — 


9 6 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


u I am more than reconciled to your plan, husband 
It seems to me delightful.” 

When we re-entered Connie’s room, we found that hei 
baby had just waked, and she had managed to get one 
arm under her, and was trying to comfort her, for she 
was crying. 


CHAPTER IX. 


A SPRING CHAPTER. 

RE especially now in my old age, I find 
myself “to a lingering motion bound.” I 
would, if I might, tell a tale day by day, 
hour by hour, following the movement of 
the'year in its sweet change of seasons. This may not 
be, but I will indulge myself now so far as to call this 
a spring chapter, and so pass to the summer, when my 
reader will see why I have called my story “ The Sea- 
board Parish." 

I was out one day amongst my people, and I found 
two precious things : one, a lovely little fact, the other a 
lovely little primrose. This was a pinched, dwarfish thing, 
for the spring was but a baby herself, and so could not 
mother more than a brave-hearted weakling. The frost 
lay all about it under the hedge, but its rough leaves kept 
it jnst warm enough, and hardly. Now, I should never 

have pulled the little darling ; it would have seemed a 

o 



9 » 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


kind of small sacrilege committed on the church of 
nature, seeing she had but this one ; only with my sickly 
cub at home, I felt justified in ravening like a beast of 
prey. I even went so far in my greed as to dig up the 
little plant with my fingers, and bear it, leaves and p’l, 
with a lump of earth about it to keep it alive, home to 
my little woman — a present from the outside world 
which she loved so much. And as I went there dawned 
upon me the recollection of a little mirror in which, if I 
could find it, she would see it still more lovely than in a 
direct looking at itself. So I set myself to find it ; for 
it lay in fragments in the drawers and cabinets of my 
memory. And before I got home I had found all the 
pieces and put them together ; and then it was a lovely 
little sonnet which a friend of mine had written and 
allowed me to see many years before. I was in the way 
of writing verses myself ; but I should have been proud 
to have written this one. I never could have done that 
Yet, as far as I knew, it had never seen the light through 
the windows of print. It was with some difficulty that 
I got it all right ; but I thought I had succeeded very 
nearly, if not absolutely, and I said it over and over, till 
I was sure I should not spoil its music or its meaning by 
halting in the delivery of it. 

“ Look here, my Connie, what I have brought you,’ 1 1 
said. 

She held out her two white, half-transparent hands, 
took it as if it had been a human baby, and looked at it 
mvingly till the tears came in her eyes. She would 
have made a tender picture, as she then lay, with her two 


A SPRING CHAPTER. 


99 


hands up, holding the little beauty before her eyes. 
Then I said what I have already written about the mirror, 
and repeated the sonnet to her. Here it is, and my 
leaders will owe me gratitude for it. My friend had 
found the snowdrop in February, and in frost. Indeed 
he told me that there was a tolerable sprinkling of snow 
upon the ground : — 

“ I know not what among the grass thou art. 

Thy nature noT thy substance, fairest flower. 

Nor what to other eyes thou hast of power 
To send thine image through them to the heart ; 

But when I push the frosty leaves apart. 

And see thee hiding in thy wintry bower, 

Thou growest up within me from that hour. 

And through the snow I with the spring depart. 

* I have no words. But fragrant is the breath, 

Pale Beauty, of thy second life within. 

There is a wind that cometh for thy death, 

But thou a life immortal dost begin, 

Where, in one soul, which is thy heaven, shall dwell 
Thy spirit^ beautiful Unspeakable 1 ” 

“Will you say it again, papa?” said Connie; “I do 
not quite understand it.” 

“ I will, my dear. But I will do something better as 
well. I will go and write it out for you, as soon as I 
have given you something else that I have brought.” 

“ Thank you, papa. And please write it in your best 
Sunday hand, that I may read it quite easily.” 

I promised, and repeated the poem. 

“I understand it a little better,” she said; “but the 
meaning is just like the primrose itself, hidden up in its 
green leaves. When you give it me in writing, I will 


I GO 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


push them apart and find it Now, tell me what else 
you have brought me.” 

I w’as greatly pleased with the resemblance the child 
saw between the plant and the sonnet ; but I did not say 
anything in praise ; I only expressed satisfaction. Before 
I began my story, Wynnie came in and sat down with 

us. 

“ I have been to see Miss Aylmer, this morning,” I 
said. “ She feels the loss of her mother very much, porr 
thing.” 

“ How old was she, papa 1 ” asked Connie. 

“ She was over ninety, my dear ;• but she had forgotten 
how much herself, and her daughter could not be sure 
about it. She was a peculiar old lady, you know. She 
once reproved me for inadvertently putting my hat on 
the tablecloth. ‘Mr Shafton,’ she said, ‘was one of the 
old school; he would never have done that I don’t 
know what the world is coming to.’ ” 

My two girls laughed at the idea of their papa being 
reproved for bad manners. 

“ What did you say, papa 1 ” they asked. 

“ I begged her pardon, and lifted it instantly. ‘ Oh, 
it’s all right now, my dear,’ she said, ‘when you’ve 
taken it up again. But I like- good manners, though I 
live in a cottage now.’ ” 

“ Had she seen better days, then?” asked Wynnie. 

“ She was a farmer’s daughter, and a farmer’s widow. 
I suppose the chief difference in her mode of life was 
that she lived in a cottage instead of a good-sized farm- 
house.” 


A SPRING CHAPTER. 


101 


“ But what is the story you have to tell us?” 

“ I ’m coming to that when you have done with your 
questions.” 

“ We have done, papa.” 

“After talking a while, during wnich she went 
bustling a little about the cottage, in order to hide 
her feelings, as I thought, for she has a good deal of 
her mother’s sense of dignity about her, — but I want 
your mother to hear the story. Run and fetch her, 
Wynnie.” 

“ Oh, do make haste, Wynnie,” said Connie. 

When Ethelwyn came, I went on. 

“ Miss Aylmer was bustling a little about the cottage, 
putting things to rights. All at once she gave a cry of 
surprise, and said, * Here it is at last ! ’ She had taken 
up a stuff dress of her mother’s, and was holding it in one 
hand, while with the othei she drew from the pocket— 
what do you think?” 

Various guesses were hazarded. 

“No, no — nothing like it. I know you could never 
guess. Therefore it would not be fair to keep you trying. 
A great iron horseshoe. The old woman of ninety years, 
had in the pocket of the dress that she was wearing at 
the very moment when she died, for her death was sudden, 
an iron horseshoe.” 

“What did it mean? Could her daughter explain it?” 

“ That she proceeded at once to do. ‘ Do you re- 
member, sir,’ she said, 1 how that horseshoe used to hang 
on a nail over the chimney-piece ? ' ‘I do remembei 
having observed it there/ I answered ; for once when 1 


102 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


took notice of it, I said to your mother, laughing, “ I 
hope you are not afraid of witches, Mrs Aylmer ?” And 
she looked a little offended, and assured me to the con- 
trary.’ ‘ Well,’ her daughter went on, ‘ about three 
months ago, I missed it. My mother would not tell me 
anything about it. And here it is I I can hardly think 
she can have carried it about all that time without me 
finding it out, but I don’t know. Here it is anyhow. 
Perhaps when she felt death drawing nearer, she took it 
from somewhere where she had hidden it, and put it in 
her pocket. If I had found it in time, I would have put 
it in her coffin ? * ‘ But why 1 9 I asked. ‘ Do tell me the 

story about it, if you know it.’ * I know it quite well, for 
she told me all about it once. It is the shoe of a 
favourite mare of my father’s — one he used to ride when 
he went courting my mother. My grandfather did not 
like to have a young man coming about the house, and 
so he came after the old folks were g jne to bed. But he 
had a long way to come, and he rode that mare. She 
had to go over some stones to get to the stable, and my 
mother used to spread straw there, for it was under the 
window of my grandfather’s room, that her shoes mightn’t 
make a noise and wake him. And that’s one of the 
shoes,’ she said, holding it up to me. ‘ When the mare 
died, my mother begged my father for the one off her 
near fore-foot, where she had so often stood and patted 
her neck when my father was mounted to ride home 
again.’” 

“ But it was very naughty of her, wasn’t it,” said 
Wynnie, “to do that without her father’s knowledge I " 


A SPRING CHAPTER. 


lOl 


“ I don’t say it was right, my dear. But in looking at 
what is wrong, we ought to look for the beginning of the 
wrong ; and possibly we might find that in this case 
farther back. If, for instance, a father isn’t a father, we 
must not be too hard in blaming the child for not being 
a child. The father’s part has to come first and teach 
the child’s part. Now, if I might guess from what I 
know of the old lady, in whom probably it was much 
softened, her father was very possibly a hard, unreason- 
ing, and unreasonable man — such that it scarcely ever 
came into the daughter’s head that she had anything else 
to do with regard to him than beware of the consequences 
of letting him know that she had a lover. The whole 
thing, I allow, was wrong ; but I suspect the father was 
first to blame, and far more to blame than the daughter. 
And that is the more likely from the high character of' 
the old dame, and the romantic way in which she clung 
to the memory of the courtship. A true heart only does 
not grow old. And I have, therefore, no doubt that the 
marriage was a happy one. Besides, I daresay, it was 
very much the custom of the country where they were, 
and that makes some difference.” 

“ Well, I ’m sure, papa, you wouldn’t like any of us 
to go and do like that,” said Wynnie. 

“Assuredly not, my dear,” I answered, laughing. 
•‘Nor have I any fear of it. But shall I tell you whal 
I think would be one of the chief things to trouble me 
if you did ? ” 

u If you like, papa. But it sounds rather dreadful to 
heai such an if” said Wynnie. 


104 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ It would be to think how much I had failed ol 
being such a father to you a-s I ought to be, and as 1 
wished to be, if it should prove at all possible for you 
to do such a thing.” 

“ It ’s too dreadful to talk about, papa,” said Wynnie j 
and the subject was dropped. 

She was a strange child, this Wynnie of ours. Whereas 
most people are in danger of thinking themselves in the 
right, or insisting that they are whether they think so or 
not, she was always thinking herself in the wrong. Nay 
more, she always expected to find herself in the wrong. 
If the perpetrator of any mischief was inquired after, she 
always looked into her own bosom to see whether she 
could not with justice aver that she was the doer of the 
deed. I believe she felt at that moment as if she had 
been deceiving me already, and deserved to be driven 
out of the house. This came of an over-sensitiveness, 
accompanied by a general dissatisfaction with herself, 
which was not upheld by a sufficient faith in the divine 
sympathy, or sufficient confidence of final purification. 
She never spared herself ; and if she was a little severe 
on the younger ones sometimes, no one was yet more 
indulgent to them. She would eat all their hard crusts 
for *hem, always give them the best and take the worst 
for herself. If there was any part in the dish that she 
was helping that she thought nobody would like, she 
invariably assigned it to her own share. It looked like 
a determined self-mortification sometimes ; but that was 
not it. She did not care for her own comfort enough to 
feel it any mortification ; though I observed that when 


A SPRING CHAPTER. 


io 5 


her mother or I helped her to anything nice, she ate it 
with as much relish as the youngest of the party. And 
her sweet smile was always ready to meet the least kind- 
ness that was offered her. Her obedience was perfect, 
and had been so for very many years, as far as we could 
see. Indeed, not since she was the merest child had 
there been any contest between us. Now, of course, 
there was no demand of obedience : she was simply the 
best earthly friend that her father and mother had. It 
often caused me some passing anxiety to think that her 
temperament, as well as her devotion to her home, might 
cause her great suffering some day; but when those 
thoughts came, I just gave her to God to take care of. 
Her mother sometimes said to her that she would make 
an excellent wife for a poor man. She would brighten 
up greatly at this, taking it for a compliment of the best 
sort. And she did not forget it, as the sequel will show. 
She would choose to sit with one candle lit when there 
were two on the table, wasting her eyes to save the 
candles. “Which will you have for dinner to-day, papa, 
roast beef or boiled?” she asked me once, when her 
mother was too unwell to attend to the housekeeping. 
And when I replied that I would have whichever she 
liked best — “ The boiled beef lasts longest, I think,” she 
said. Yet she was not only as liberal and kind as any 
to the poor, but she was, which is rarer, and perhaps 
more important for the final formation of a character* 
carefully just to every one with whom she had any deal- 
ings. Her sense of law was very strong. Law with her 
was something absolute, and not to be questioned. In 


IO 6 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


her childhood there was one lady to whom for years she 
showed a decided aversion, and we could not understand 
it, for it was the most inoffensive Miss Boulderstone. When 
she was nearly grown up, one of us happening to allude 
to the fact, she volunteered an explanation. Miss Boul- 
derstone had happened to call one day when Wynnie, 
then between three and four, was in disgrace — in the 
corner , in fact. Miss Boulderstone interceded for her ; 
and this was the whole front of her offending. 

“ I was so angry ! ” she said. “ * As if my papa did 
not know best when I ought to come out of the corner ! 9 
I said to myself. And I couldn’t bear her for ever so 
long after that.” 

Miss Boulderstone, however, though not very interest- 
ing, was quite a favourite before she died. She left 
Wynnie — for she and her brother were the last of their 
race — a death’s-head watch, which had been in the 
family she did not know how long. I think it is as old 
as Queen Elizabeth’s time. I took it to London to a 
skilful man, and had it as well repaired as its age would 
admit of ; and it has gone ever since, though not with 
the greatest accuracy ; for what could be expected of an 
old death’s-head, the most transitory thing in creation 1 
Wynnie wears it to this day, and wouldn’t part with it 
for the best watch in the world 

I tell the reader all this about my daughter that he 
may be the more able to understand what will follow in 
due time. He will think that as yet my story has been 
nothing but promises. Let him only hope that I will 
fulfil them, and I shall be content 


A SPRING CHAPTER. 


107 


Mr Boulderstone did not long outlive his sister. 
Though the old couple, for they were rather old before they 
died, if indeed, they were not born old, which I strongly 
suspect, being the last of a decaying family that had not 
left the land on which they were born for a great many 
generations— though the old people had not, of what the 
French call sentiments, one between them, they were yet 
capable of a stronger and, I had almost said, more ro- 
mantic attachment, than many couples who have married 
from love ; for the lady’s sole trouble in dying was what 
her brother would do without her ; and from the day of 
her death, he grew more and more dull and seemingly 
stupid. Nothing gave him any pleasure but having 
Wynnie to dinner with him. I knew that it must be 
very dull for hef, but she went often, and I never heard 
her complain of it, though she certainly did looked fagged 
— not boi'ed \ observe, but fagged — showing that she had 
been exerting herself to meet the difficulties of the situa- 
tion. When the good man died, we found that he had left 
ail his money in my hands, in trust for the poor of the 
parish, to be applied in an y way I thought best. This 
involved me in much perplexity, for nothing is more 
difficult than to make money useful to the poor. But I 
was very glad of it, notwiths tanding. 

My own means were not so large as my readers may 
think. The property my w fe brought me was much en- 
cumbered. With the help of her private fortune, ancf 
the income of several years, (not my income from the 
church, it may be as well to •ay), I succeeded in clearing 
off the encumbrances. But even then there remained 


io8 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


much to be done, if I would be the good steward that 
was not to be ashamed at his Lord’s coming. First of 
all there were many cottages to be built for the labourers 
o-n the estate. If the farmers would not, or could not, 
help, I must do it ; for to provide decent dwellings for 
them, was clearly one of the divine conditions in the 
righteous tenure of property, whatever the human might 
be ; for it was not for myself alone, or for myself chiefly, 
that this property was given to me ; it was for those who 
lived upon it. Therefore I laid out what money I could, 
not only in getting all the land clearly in its right relation 
to its owner, but in doing the best I could for those 
attached to it who could not help themselves. And 
when I hint to my reader that I had some conscience in 
paying my curate, though, as they had no children, they 
did not require so much as I should otherwise have felt 
compelled to give them, he will easily see that as my 
family grew up I could not have so muen to give away ot 
my own as I should have liked. Therefore this trust of the 
good Mr Boulderstone was the more acceptable to me. 

One word more ere I finish this chapter. — I should 
not like my friends to think that I had got tired of our 
Christmas gatherings, because I have made no mention, 
of one this year. It had been pretermitted for the first 
time, because of my daughter’s illness. It was mucn 
easier to give them now than when I lived at the vicar- 
age, for there was plenty of room in the old hall. But 
my curate, Mr Weir, still held a similar gathering there 
every Easter. 

Another one word more about him. Some may wonder 


A SPRING CHAPTER. 


IO9 


why I have not mentioned him or my sister, especially in 
connexion with Connie’s accident. The fact was, that 
he had taken, or rather I had given him, a long holiday. 
Martha had had several disappointing illnesses, and her 
general health had suffered so much in consequence that 
there was even some fear of her lungs, and a winter in 
the south of France had been strongly recommended. 
Upon this I came in with more than a recommendation, 
and insisted that they should go. They had started in 
the beginning of October, and had not returned up to the 
time of which I am now about to write — somewhere in 
the beginning of the month of April. But my sister was 
now almost quite well, and I was not sorry to think that 
I should soon have a little more leisure for such small 
literary pursuits as I delighted in — to my own enrichment, 
and consequently to the good of my parishioners and 
friends. 


CHAPTER X. 


AN IMPORTANT LETTER. 

was, then, in the beginning of April that I 
received one morning an epistle from an old 
college friend of mine, with whom I had re- 
newed my acquaintance of late, through the 
pleasure which he was kind enough to say he had derived 
from reading a little book of mine upon the relation of 
the mind of St Paul to the gospel story. His name was 
Shepherd — a good name for a clergyman. In his case 
both Christian name and patronymic might remind him 
well of his duty. David Shepherd ought to be a good 
clergyman. 

As soon as I had read the letter, I went with it open 
in my hand to find my wife. 

“ Here is Shepherd,” I said, “with a clerical sore-throat, 
and forced to give up his duty for a whole summer. He 
writes to ask me whether, as he understands I have a 
curate as good as myself — that is what the old fellow says 



AN IMPORTANT LETTER. 


Ill 


— it might not suit me to take my family to his place 
for the summer. He assures me I should like it, and 
that it would do us all good. His house, he says, is large 
enough to hold us, and he knows I should not like to be 
without duty wherever I was. And so on. Read the 
letter for yourself, and turn it over in your mind, Weir 
will come back so fresh and active that it will be no 
oppression to him to take the whole of the duty here. 
I will run and ask Turner whether it would be safe to 
move Connie, and whether the sea-air wo«uld be good for 
her.” 

“ One would think you were only twenty, husband — - 
you make up your mind so quickly, and are in su-ch a 
hurry.” 

The fact was, a vision of the sea had rushed in upon 
me. It was many years since I had seen the sea, and 
the thought of looking on it once more, in its most 
glorious show, the Atlantic itself, with nothing between 
us and America but the round of the ridgy water, had 
excited me so that my wife’s reproof, if reproof it was, 
was quite necessary to bring me to my usually quiet and 
sober senses. I laughed, begged old grannie’s pardon, 
and set off to see Turner notwithstanding, leaving her to 
read and ponder Shepherd’s letter. 

u What do you think, Turner?” I said, and tcld him 
the case. 

He looked rather grave. 

“ When would you think of going ? ” he asked. 

u About the beginning of June.” 

“Nearly two months,” he said, thoughtfully. “And 


Ill 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


Miss Connie was not the worse for getting on the sofa 
yesterday 1 " 

u The better, I do think.** 

“ Has she had any increase of pain since ? ** 
u None, I quite believe ; for I questioned her as to 
that.** 

He thought again. He was a careful man, although 
young. 

u It is a long journey.** 

“ She could make it by easy stages.** 
u It would certainly do her good to breathe the sea- 
air and have such a thorough change in every way — if 
only it could be managed without fatigue and suffering. 
I think, if you can get her up every day between this 
and that, we shall be justified in trying it at least. The 
sooner you get her out of doors the better too ; but the 
weather is scarcely fit for that yet.” 

“ A good deal will depend on how she is inclined, I 
suppose.” 

“ Yes. But in her case you must not mind that too 
much. An invalid’s instincts as to eating and drinking 
are more to be depended upon than those of a healthy 
person ; but it is not so, I think, with regard to anything 
involving effort. That she must sometimes be urged to. 
She must not judge that by inclination. I have had, 
in my short practice, two patients who considered them- 
selves bedlars , as you will find the common people in 
the part you are going to, call them — bedridden, that is. 
One of them I persuaded to make the attempt to rise, 
and although her sense of inability was anything but 


AN IMPORTANT LETTER. 


Ix 3 


deigned, and she will be a sufferer to the end of her 
days, yet she goes about the house without much incon- 
venience, and I suspect is not only physically but mor» 
ally the better for it. The other would not consent to 
try, and I believe lies there still.” 

M The will has more to with most things than people 
generally suppose,” I said. “ Could you manage, now, 
do you think, supposing we resolve to make the experi- 
ment, to accompany us the first stage or two ?” 

“ It is very likely I could. Only you must not depend 
upon me. I cannot tell beforehand. You yourself 
would teach me that I must not be a respecter of per- 
sons, you know.” 

I returned to my wife. She was in Connie’s room. 

“ Well, my dear,” I said, “ what do you think of 
itr 

“ Of what ?” she asked. 

“ Why, of Shepherd's letter, of course,” 1 answered. 

“ I ’ve been ordering the dinner since, Harry.” 

“The dinner!” I returned, with some show of con- 
tempt, for I knew' my wife was only teasing me. 
“ What’s the dinner to the Atlantic ?” 

“What do you mean by the Atlantic, papa?” said 
Connie, from whose roguish eyes I could see that her 
mother had told her all about it, and that she was not 
disinclined to get up, if only she could. 

“The Atlantic, my dear, is the name given to that 
portion of the waters of the globe which divides Europe 
from America. I will fetch you the Universal Gazetteer, 
if you would like to consult it on the subject.” 


v 


THE SEABOARD PARISH, 


114 


“ Oh, papa!” laughed Connie; “you know what I 
mean.” 

“ Yes ; and you know what I mean too, you squirrel !” 

“ But do you really mean, papa,” she said, “ that you 
will take me to the Atlantic V * 

“ If you will only oblige me by getting well enough to 
go as soon as possible.” 

The poor child half rose on her elbow, but sank back 
again with a moan, which I took for a cry of pain. I 
was beside her in a moment. 

“My darling ! You have hurt yourself!” 

“ Oh no, papa. I felt for the moment as if I could 
get up if I liked. But I soon found that I hadn’t any 
back or legs. Oh ! what a plague I am to you !” 

“ On the contrary, you are the nicest plaything in the 
world, Connie. One always knows where to find you.” 

She half-laughed and half-cried, and the two halves 
made a very bewitching whole. 

“ But,” I went on, “ I mean to try whether my dolly 
won’t bear moving. One thing is clear, I can’t go with- 
out it. Do you think you could be got on the sofa to- 
day without hurting you V’ 

“ I am sure I could, papa. I feel better to-day than 
I have felt yet Mamma, do send for Susan, and get 
me up before dinner.” 

When I went in after a couple of hours or so, I found 
her lying on the couch, propped up with pillows. She 
lay looking out of the window on the lawn at the 
back of the house. A smile hovered about her bloodless 
tips, and the blue of her eyes, though very gray, looked 


AN IMPORTANT LETTER. 


|, S 


sunny. Her white face showed the whiter because her 
dark brown hair was ail about it. We had had to cut 
her hair, but it had grown to her neck again. 

“ I have been trying to count the daisies on the lawn/’ 
she said. 

“ What a sharp sight you must have, child ! " 

“ I see them all as clear as if they were enamelled on 
that table before me.” 

1 was not so anxious to get rid of the daisies as some 
people are. Neither did I keep the grass quite so close 
shaved. 

“ But,” she went on, “ I could not count them, for it 
gave me the fidgets in my feet.” 

“ You don’t say so !” I exclaimed. 

She looked at me with some surprise, but concluding 
that I was only makina a little of my mild fun at her ex- 
pense, she laughed. 

“ Yes. Isn’t it a wonderful fact?” she said. 

M It is a fact, my dear, that I feel ready to go on my 
knees and thank God for. I may be wrong, but I take 
it as a sign that you are beginning to recover a little. 
But we mustn’t make too much of it, lest I should be 
mistaken,” I added, checking myself, for I feared excit- 
ing her too much. 

But she lay very still ; only the tears rose slowly and 
lay shimmering in her eyes. After about five minutes, 
during which we were both silent, — 

•‘Oh, papa !” she said, “ to think of ever walking out 
with you again, and feeling the wind on my face ! 1 can 
hardly believe it possible.” 


I T 5 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“It is so mild, I think you might have half that 
pleasure at once,” I answered. 

And I opened the window, let the spring air gentlj 
move her hair for one moment, and then shut it agaia 
Connie breathed deep, and said after a little pause, — 

“ I had no idea how delightful it was. To think that 
I have been in the way of breathing that every moment 
for so many years, and never thought about it ! ” 

“ It is not always just like that in this climate. But I 
ought not to have made that remark when I wanted to 
make this other : that I suspect we shall find some day 
that the loss of the human paradise consists chiefly in the 
closing of the human eyes ; that at least far more of it 
than people think remains about us still, only we are so 
filled with foolish desires and evil cares, that we cannot 
see or hear, cannot even smell or taste the pleasant 
things round about us. We have need to pray in regard 
to the right receiving of the things of the senses even, 
'Lord, open thou our hearts to understand thy word;’ 
for each of these things is as certainly a word of God as 
Jesus is The Word of God. He has made nothing in 
vain. All is for our teaching. Shall I tell you what 
such a breath of fresh air makes me think of?” 

“ It comes to me,” said Connie, “ like forgiveness when 
I was a little girl and was naughty. I used to feel just 
like that 

“ It is the same kind of thing I feel,” I said — “as if 
life from the Spirit of God were coming into my soul : 
I think of the wind that bloweth where it listeth. 
Wind and spirit are the same word in the Greek ; and 


AN IMPORTANT LETTER. 


117 


the Latin word spirit comes even nearer to what we are 
saying, for it is the wind as breathed. And now, Connie, 
I will tell you — and you will see how I am growing able 
to talk to you like quite an old friend — what put me in 
such a delight with Mr Shepherd’s letter, and so exposed 
me to be teased by mamma and you. As I read it, there 
rose up before me a vision of one sight of the sea which 
I had when I was a young man, long before I saw youf 
mamma. I had gone out for a walk along some high 
downs. But I ought to tell you that I had been working 
rather hard at Cambridge, and the life seemed to be all 
gone out of me. Though my holidays had come, they did 
not feel quite like holidays — not as holidays used to feel 
when I was a boy. Even when walking alonsr those 
downs, with the scents of sixteen grasses or so In my brain, 
like a melody with the odour of the earth for the accorm 
paniment upon which it floated, and with just enough of 
wind to stir them up and set them in motion, I could 
not feel at all. I remembered something of what I 
had used to feel in such places, but instead of believing 
in that, I doubted now whether it had not been all a trick 
that I played myself — a fancied pleasure only. I was 
walking along, then, with the sea behind me. It was a 
warm, cloudy day — I had had no sunshine since I came 
out All at once I turned — I don’t know why. There 
lay the gray sea, but not as I had seen it last, not all gray. 
It was dotted, spotted, and splashed all over with drops, 
pools, and lakes of light, of all shades of depth, from a 
light shimmer of tremulous gray, through a half-light that 
turned the prevailing lead colour into translucent green 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


118 


that seemed to grow out of its depths — through this, I 
say, to brilliant light, deepening and deepening till my 
very soul was stung by the triumph of the intensity of its 
molten silver. There was no sun upon me. But there 
were breaks in the clouds over the sea, through which, 
the air being filled with vapour, I could see the long lines 
of the sun-rays descending on the waters like rain — so 
like a rain of light that the water seemed to plash up in 
light under their fall. I questioned the past no more ; 
the present seized upon me, and I knew that the past 
was true, and that nature was more lovely, more awful in 
her loveliness than I could grasp. It was a lonely place ! 
I fell on my knees, and worshipped the God that made 
the glory and my soul.” 

While i spoke Connie's tears had been flowing 
quietly. 

“ And mamma and I were making fun while you were 
seeing such things as those ! ” she said, pitifully. 

“You didn’t hurt them one bit, my darling — neither 
mamma nor you. If I had been the least cross about it, 
as I should have been when I was as young as at the 
time of which I was thinking, that would have ruined the 
vision entirely. But your merriment only made me enjoy 
it more. And, my Connie, I hope you will see the 
Atlantic before long ; and if one vision should come as 
brilliant as that, we shall be fortunate indeed — if we went 
all the way to the west to see that only.” 

“ O papa ! I dare hardly think of it — it is too 
delightful. But do you think we shall really go 1 ” 

u I do. Here comes your mamma. — I am going to 


AN IMPORTANT LETTER. 


119 


say to Shepherd, my dear, that I will take his parish in 
hand, and if I cannot, after all, go myself, will find some 
one, so that he need be in no anxiety from the uncer- 
tainty which must hang over our movements even till the 
experiment itself is made.” 

“ Very well, husband. I am quite satisfied.” 

And as I watched Connie, I saw that hope and e» 
pectation did much to prepare her* 


CHAPTER XL 


Connie’s dream. 

TURNER, being a good mechanic as well 
as surgeon, proceeded to invent, and with 
his own hands in a great measure construct, 
a kind of litter, which, with a water-bed laid 
upon it, could be placed in our own carriage for Connie 
to lie upon, and from that lifted, without disturbing her, 
and placed in a similar manner in the railway carriage. 
He had laid Connie repeatedly upon it before he was 
satisfied that the arrangement of the springs, &c., was 
successful. But at length she declared that it was 
perfect, and that she would not mind being carried 
across the Arabian desert on a camel’s back with that 
under her. 

As the season advanced she continued to improve. 
I shall never forget the first time she was carried out 
upon the lawn. If you can imagine an infant coming 
into the world capable of the observation and delight 



CONNIE’S DREAM. 


Ill 


of a child of eight or ten, you will have some idea ol 
how Connie received the new impressions of everything 
around her. They were almost too much for her at 
first, however. She who had been used to scamper 
about like a wild thing on her pony, found the delight 
of a breath of wind almost more than she could bear. 
After she was laid down she closed her eyes, and the 
smile that flickered about her mouth was of a sort that 
harmonized entirely with the two great tears that crept 
softly out from under her eyelids, and sank, rather than 
ran, down her cheeks. She lay so that she faced a rich 
tract of gently-receding upland, plentifully wooded to 
the horizon’s edge, and through the wood peeped the 
white and red houses of a little hamlet, with the square 
tower of its church just rising above the trees. A kind 
of frame was made to the whole picture by the nearer 
trees of our own woods, through an opening in which, 
evidently made or left for its sake, the distant prospect 
was visible. It was a morning in early summer, when 
the leaves were not quite full-grown, but almost, and 
their green was shining and pure as the blue of the sky, 
when the air had no touch of bitterness or of lassitude, 
but was thoroughly warm, and yet filled the lungs with 
the reviving as of a draught of cold water. We had 
fastened the carriage umbrella to the sofa, so that it 
should shade her perfectly without obscuring her oro- 
spect ; and behind this we all crept, leaving her to coma 
to herself without being looked at, for emotion is a sny 
and sacred thing, and should be tenderly hidden by those 
who are near. The bees k ept very beesy all about u& 


122 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


To see one huge fellow, as big as three ordinary ones, 
with pieces of red and yellow about him, as if he were 
the beadle of all bee-dom, and overgrown in consequence 
— to see him, I say, down in a little tuft of white clover, 
rolling about in it, hardly able to move for fatness, yet 
bumming away as if his business was to express tne 
delight of the whole creation — was a sight ! Then there 
were the butterflies, so light that they seemed to tumble 
up into the air, and get down again with difficulty! They 
bewildered me with their inscrutable variations of pur- 
pose. “ If I could but see once, for an hour, into the 
mind of a butterfly,” I thought, “it would be to me worth 
all the natural history I ever read. If I could but see 
why he changes his mind so often and so suddenly — what 
he saw about that flower to make him seek it — then why, 
on a nearer approach, he should decline .further acquaint- 
ance with it, and go rocking away through the air, to do 
the same fifty times over again — it would give me an in- 
sight into all animal and vegetable life that ages of study 
could not bring me up to.” I was thinking all this 
behind my daughter’s umbrella, while a lark, whose body 
had melted quite away in the heavenly spaces, was scat- 
tering bright beads of ringing melody straight down upon 
our heads; while a cock was crowing like a clarion from 
the home-farm, as if in defiance of the golden glitter of 
his silent brother on the roof of the stable ; while a little 
stream that scampered down the same slope as the lawn 
lay upon, from a well in the stable-yard, mingled its sweet 
undertone of contentment with the jubilation of the lark 
and the business-like hum of the bees; and while white 



PAPA SAID CONNIE AT LENGTH, AND I WAS BESIDE HER IN A MOMENT 






























































































































Connie’s dream. 


123 


clouds floated in the majesty of silence across the blue 
deeps of the heavens. The air was so full of life and 
reviving, that it seemed like the crude substance that 
God might take to make babies’ souls of — only the very 
simile smells of materialism, and therefore I do not like it 
“ Papa/’ said Connie at length, and I was beside he? 
in a moment Her face looked almost glorified with 
delight : there was a hush of that awe upon it which 
is perhaps one of the deepest kinds of delight. She 
put out her thin white hand, took hold of a button 
of my coat, drew me down tow ards her, and said in a 
whisper : 

“ Don’t you think God is here, papal” 

“Yes, I do, my darling,” I answered 
“ Doesn’t he enjoy this 1 ” 

“Yes, my dear. He wouldn’t make us enjoy it if ht 
did not enjoy it. It would be to deceive us to make us 
glad and blessed, while our Father did not care about it. 
or how it came to us. At least it would amount to maV 
ing us no longer his children.” 

“ I am so glad you think so. I do. And I shall 
enjoy it so much more now.” 

She could hardly finish her sentence, but burst out 
sobbing so that I was afraid she would hurt herself. I 
saw, however, that it was best to leave her to quiet her- 
self, and motioned to the rest to keep back and let her 
recover as she could; The emotion passed off in a 
summer shower, and when I went round once more, her 
face was shining just like a wet landscape after the sun 
has come out and Nature has begun to make gentle 


124 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


game of her own past sorrows. In a little while, she 
*ras merry — merrier, notwithstanding her weakness, than 
1 think I had ever seen her before. 

“ Look at that comical sparrow,” she said. “ Look 
how he cocks his head first on one side and then on the 
other. Does he want us to see him ? Is he bumptious, 
or what V * 

“ I hardly know, my dear. I think sparrows are very 
like schoolboys; and I suspect that if we understood 
the one class thoroughly, we should understand the 
other. But I confess I do not yet understand either.” 

“ Perhaps you will when Charlie and Harry are old 
enough to go to school,” said Connie. 

“ It is my only chance of making any true acquaint- 
ance with the sparrows,” I answered. “ Look at them 
now,” I exclaimed, as a little crowd of them suddenly 
appeared where only one had stood a moment before, 
and exploded in objurgation and general unintelligible 
excitement. After some obscure fluttering of wings and 
pecking, they all vanished except two, which walked 
about in a dignified manner, trying apparently to seem 
quite unconscious each of the other’s presence. 

“ I think it was a political meeting of some sort," 
said Connie, laughing nerrily. 

“ Well, they have this advantage over us,” I answered, 
u that they get through their business, whatever it may 
be, with considerably greater expedition than we get 
through ours.” 

A short silence followed, during which Connie lay 
contemplating everything. 


CONNIE S DREAM. 


«5 


“What do you think we girls are like, then, papa?” 
she asked at length. “ Don’t say you don’t know, now.” 

“ I ought to know something more about you than 
I do about schoolboys. And I think I do know a little 
about girls — not much, though. They puzzle me a good 
deal sometimes. I know what a great-hearted woman 
is, Connie.” 

“ You can’t help doing that, papa,” interrupted Connie, 
adding with her old roguishness, “You must’nt pass 
yourself off for very knowing for that. By the time 
Wynnie is quite grown up, your skill will be tried.” 

“ I hope I shall understand her then, and you too, 
Connie.” 

A shadow, just like the shadow of one of those white 
clouds above us, passed over her face, and she said, 
trying to smile : 

“ I shall never grow up, papa. If I live, 1 shall only 
be a girl at best — a creature you can’t understand.” 

“ On the contrary, Connie, I think I understand you 
almost as well as mamma. But there isn’t so much to 
understand yet, you know, as there will be.” 

Her merriment returned. 

“ Tell me what girls are like, then, or I shall sulk all 
day because you say there isn’t so much in me as in 
mamma.” 

“ Well, I think, if the boys are like sparrows, the girls 
are like swallows. Did you ever watch them before 
rain, Connie, skimming about over the lawn as if it 
were water, low towards its surface, but never alighting I 
You never see them grubbing after worms. Nothing 


126 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


less than things with wings like themselves will satisfy 
them. They will be obliged to the earth only for a 
little mud to build themselves nests with. For the rest, 
they live in the air, and on the creatures of the air. 
And then, when they fancy the air begins to be uncivil, 
sending little shoots of cold through their warm feathers, 
they vanish. They won’t stand it. They’re off to a 
warmer climate, and you never know till you find 
they’re not there any more. There, Connie !” 

“ I don’t know, papa, whether you are making game of 
us or not. If you are not, then I wish all you say were 
quite true of us. If you are, then I think it is not quite 
like you to be satirical.” 

“ I am no believer in satire, Connie. And I didn’t 
mean any. The swallows are lovely creatures, and 
there would be no harm if the girls were a little steadier 
than the swallows. Further satire than that I am inno- 
cent of.” 

“ I don’t mind that much, papa. Only /’ m steady 
enough — and no thanks to me for it,” she added with a 
sigh. 

“Connie,” I said, “it's all for the sake of your wirgs 
that you ’re kept in your nest.” 

She did not stay out long this first day, for the life the 
air gave her soon tired her weak body. But the next 
morning she was brighter and better, and longing to get 
up and go out again. When she was once m ore laid on 
her couch on the lawn, in the midst of the world of light 
and busy-ness. in which the light was the busiest of all, 
the said to me : 


Connie's dream. 


i*7 


“ Papa, I had such a strange dream last night : shall I 
tell it you ] ” 

“ If you please, my dear. I am very fond of dreams that 
have any sense in them — or even of any that have good 
nonsense in them. I woke this morning, saying to my- 
self, * Dante, the poet, must have been a respectable man, 
for he was permitted by the council of Florence to carry 
the Nicene Creed and the Multiplication Table in his coat 
of arms/ Now tell me your dream/* 

Connie laughed. All the household tried to make 
Connie laugh, and generally succeeded. It was quite a 
triumph to Charley or Harry, and was sure to be recounted 
with glee at the next meal, when he succeeded in making 
Connie laugh. 

“ Mine wasn’t a dream to make me laugh. It was too 
dreadful at first, and too delightful afterwards. I suppose 
it was getting out for the first time yesterday that made 
me dream it. I thought I was lying quite still, without 
breathing even, with my hands straight down by my sides 
and my eyes closed. I did not choose to open them, for 
I knew that if I did I should see nothing but the inside 
of the lid of my coffin. I did not mind it much at first, 
for I was very quiet, and not uncomfortable. Every- 
thing was as silent as it should be, for I was ten feet and 
a half under the surface of the earth in the churchyard. 
Old Rogers was not far from me on one side, and that 
was a comfort ; only there was a thick wall of earth be- 
tween. But as the time went on, I began to get uncom- 
fortable. I could not help thinking how long I should 
have to wait for the resurrection. Somehow I had fos- 


128 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


gotten all that you teach us about that. Perhaps it was a 
punishm at — the dream — for forgetting it.” 

“ Silly child! Your dream is far better than your re- 
flections,* 

“ Weli, I’ll go on with my dream. I lay a long time 
till I got very tired, and wanted to get up, oh, so much ! 
But still I lay, and although I tried, I could not move 
hand or foot. At last I burst out crying. I was ashamed 
of crying in my coffin, but I couldn’t bear it any longer. 
I thought I was quite disgraced, for everybody was ex- 
pected to be perfectly quiet and patient down there. 
But the moment I began to cry, I heard a sound. And 
when I listened it was the sound of spades and pickaxes. 
It went on and on, and came nearer and nearer. And 
then — it was so strange — I was dreadfully frightened at 
the idea of the light and the wind, and of the people 
seeing me in my coffin and my night-dress, and tried to 
persuade myself that it was somebody else they were 
digging for, or that they were only going to lay another 
coffin over mine. And I thought that if it was you, 
papa, I shouldn’t mind how long I lay there, for I 
shouldn’t feel a bit lonely, even though we could not 
speak a word to each other all the time. But the sounds 
came on, nearer and nearer, and at last a pickaxe struck, 
with a blow that jarred me all through, upon the lid of 
the coffin, right over my head. 

"‘Here she is, poor thing !’ I heard a sweet voice say. 

“‘I’m so glad we ’ve found her,’ said another voice. 

“ ‘ She couldn’t bear it any longer,’ said a third more 
pitiful voice than either of the others. ‘I heard hei 


CONNIE’S DREAM. 


129 


first,* it went on. *1 was away up in Orion, when I 
thought I heard a woman crying that oughtn’t to be 
crying. And I stopped and listened. And I heard her 
again. Then I knew that it was one of the buried ones, 
and that she had been buried long enough, and waa 
ready for the resurrection. So as any business can wail 
except that, I flew here and there till I fell in with the 
rest of you.* 

“ I think, papa, that this must have been because ol 
what you were saying the other evening about the mys- 
ticism of St Paul ; that while he defended with all his 
might the actual resurrection of Christ and the resurrec- 
tion of those he came to save, he used it as meaning 
something more yet, as a symbol for our coming out of 
the death of sin into the life of truth. Isn’t that right, 
papa ? ’* 

“ Yes, my dear ; I believe so. But I want to hear 
your dream first, and then your way of accounting for 
it” 

“ There isn't much more of it now.* 

“ There must be the best of it.’* 

“Yes. I allow that Well, while they spoke — it 
was a wonderfully clear and connected dream : I never 
had one like it for that, or for anything else — they were 
clearing away the earth and stones from the top of my 
coffin. And I lay trembling and expecting to be looked 
at, like a thing in a box as I was, every moment But 
they lifted me, coffin and all, out of the grave, for I felt 
the motion of it up. Then they set it down, and I heard 
them taking the lid ofl. But after the lid was off, it did 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


13 ° 


not seem to make much difference to me. I could not 
open my eyes. I saw no light, and felt no wind blow- 
ing upon me. But I heard whispering about me. Then 
I felt warm, soft hands washing my face, and then I felt 
wafts of wind coming on my face, and thought they 
came from the waving of wings. And when they had 
washed my eyes, the air came upon them, so sweet and 
cool ! and I opened them, I thought, and here I was 
lying on this couch, with butterflies and bees flitting 
and buzzing about me, the brook singing somewhere 
near me, and a lark up in the sky. But there were no 
angels — only plenty of light and wind and living crea- 
tures. And I don’t think I ever knew before what 
happiness meant. Wasn’t it a resurrection, papa, to 
come out of the grave into such a world as this 1 ” 

“ Indeed it was, my darling — and a very beautiful 
and true dream. There is no need for me to moralize 
it to you, for you have done so for yourself already. But 
not only do I think that the coming out of sin into good- 
ness, out of unbelief into faith in God, is like your dream; 
but I do expect that no dream of such delight can come 
up to the sense of fresh life and being that we shall have, 
when we get on the higher body after this one won’t serve 
our purpose any longer, and is worn out and cast aside. 
The very ability of the mind, whether of itself or by 
some inspiration of. the Almighty, to dream such things, 
Is a proof of our capacity for such things, a proof, I think* 
that tor such things we were made. Here comes in the 
cnance ior fkith in God — the confidence in his being 
and perfection, that he would not have made us capable 


CONNIE’S DftEAM. 


* 3 * 


without meaning to fill that capacity. If he is able to 
make us capable, that is the harder half done already, 
The other he can easily do. And if he is love he will 
do it. You should thank God for that dream, Connie.” 

“ I was afraid to do that, papa.” 

“ That is as much as to fear that there is one place to 
which David might have fled, where God would not find 
him — the most terrible of all thoughts.” 

“ W here do you mean, papa t ” 

“ Dreamland, my dear. If it is right to thank God 
for a beautiful thought — I mean a thought of strength 
and grace giving you fresh life and hope — why should 
you be less bold to thank him when such thoughts arise 
in plainer shape — take such vivid forms to your mind 
that they seem to come through the doors of the eyes 
into the vestibule of the brain, and thence into the itnei 
chambers of the soull” 


CHAPTER XII. 


THE JOURNEY. 

OR more than two months Charlie and H&ny 
had been preparing for the journey. The 
moment they heard of the prospect of it, 
they began to prepare, accumulate, and pack 
stores both for the transit and the sojourn. First of all 
there was an extensive preparation of ginger-beer, con- 
sisting, as I was informed in confidence, of brown sugar, 
ground ginger, and cold water. This store was how- 
ever, as near as I can judge, exhausted and renewed 
about twelve times before the day of departure arrived, 
and when at last the auspicious morning dawned, they 
remembered with dismay that they had drunk the last 
drop two days before, and there was none in stock. 
Then there was a wonderful and more successful hoard- 
ing of marbles, of a variety so great that my memory re- 
fuses to bear the names of the different kinds, which, I 



THE JOURNEY. 


*33 


think, must have greatly increased since the time when 
I too was a boy, when some marbles — one of real white 
marble with red veins especially — produced in my mind 
something of the delight that a work of art produces 
now. These were carefully deposited in one of the 
many divisions of a huge old hair-trunk, which they had 
got their uncle Weir, who could use his father’s tools with 
pleasure if not to profit, to fit up for them with a multi- 
plicity of boxes, and cupboards, and drawers, and trays, 
and slides, that was quite bewildering. In this same 
box was stowed also a quantity of hair, the gleanings of 
all the horse-tails upon the premises. This was for 
making fishing-tackle, with a vague notion on the part of 
Harry that it was to be employed in catching whales and 
crocodiles. Then all their favourite books were stowed 
away in the same chest ; in especial a packet of a dozen 
penny books, of which I think I could give a complete 
list now. For, one afternoon as I searched about in the 
lumber-room after a set of old library steps, which I 
wanted to get repaired, I came upon the chest, and open- 
ing it, discovered my boys’ hoard, and in it this packet of 
books : I sat down on the top of the chest and read 
them all through, from Jack the Giant-killer down tc 
Hop o’ my Thumb, without rising, and this in the broad 
daylight, with the yellow sunshine nestling beside me on 
the rose-coloured silken seat, richly worked, of a large 
gtately-looking chair with three golden legs. Yes I could 
tell you all those stories, not to say the names of them, 
over yet Only I knew every one of them before ; finding 
now that they had fared like good vintages, for if they had 


«34 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


lost something in potency, they had gained much in flavour. 
Harry could not read these, and Charlie not very well, 
but they put confidence in them notwithstanding, in 
virtue of the red, blue, and yellow prints. Then there 
was a box of sawdust, the design of which I have not 
yet discovered ; a huge ball of string ; a rabbit’s skin ; 
a Noah’s ark ; an American clock, that refused to go for 
all the variety of treatment they gave it ; a box of lead 
soldiers, and twenty other things, amongst which was a 
huge gilt ball having an eagle of brass with outspread 
v\ings on the top of it. 

Great was their consternation and dismay when they 
found that this magazine could not be taken in the post- 
chaise in which they were to follow us to the station. A 
good part of our luggage had been sent on before us, but 
the boys had intended the precious box to go with them- 
selves. Knowing well, however, how little they would 
miss it, and with what shouts of south-sea discovery they 
would greet the forgotten treasure when they returned, I 
insisted on the lumbering article being left in peace. So 
that, as man goetn treasureless to his grave, whatever he 
may have accumulated before the fatal moment, they 
had to set off for the far country without chest or ginger- 
beer — not therefore altogether so desolate and unpro- 
vided for as they imagined. The abandoned treasure 
was forgotten the moment the few tears it had occasioned 
were wiped away. 

It was the loveliest of mornings when we started upon 
our journey. The sun shone, the wind was quiet, and 
everything was glad. The swallows were twittering from 


THE JOURNEY. 


■35 


the corbels they had added to the adornment of the dear 
old house. 

“ I ’m sorry to leave the swallows behind,” said 
VVynnie, as she stepped into the carriage after her 
mother. Connie, of course, was already there, eager 
and strong-hearted for the journey. 

We set off. Connie was in delight with everything, 
especially with all forms of animal life and enjoyment 
that we saw on the road. She seemed to enter into the 
spirit of the cows feeding on the rich green grass of the 
meadows, of the donkeys eating by the roadside, of the 
horses we met, bravely diligent at their day’s work, as 
they trudged along the road with waggon or cart behind 
them. I sat by the coachman, but so that I could see 
her face by the slightest turning of my head. I knew 
by its expression that she gave a silent blessing to the 
little troop of a brown-faced gipsy family, which came 
out of a dingy tent to look at the passing carriage. 
A fleet of ducklings in a pool, paddling along under the 
convoy of the parent duck, next attracted her. 

“ Look ; look. Isn’t that delicious 1” she cried. 

“ I don’t think I should like it though,” said Wynnie. 

“ What shouldn’t you like, Wynnie 1” asked hei 
mother. 

“ To be in the water and not feel it wet Those 
feathers ! ” 

“ They feel it with their legs and their webby toes/ 
said Connie. 

“ Yes, that is some consolation,” answered Wynnie. 

•' And if you were a duck, you would feel the good of 


I3« 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


your feathers in winter, when you got into your cold 
bath of a morning.” 

I give all this chat for the sake of showing how Con- 
nie’s illness had not in the least withdrawn her from 
nature and her sympathies — had rather, as it were, made 
all the fibres of her being more delicate and sympathetic, 
so that the things around her could enter her soul even 
more easily than before, and what had seemed to shut 
her out had in reality brought her into closer contact 
with the movements of all vitality. 

We had to pass through the village to reach the rail 
way station. Everybody almost was out to bid us good- 
bye. I did not want, for Connie’s sake chiefly, to have 
any scene, but recalling something I had forgotten to 
say to one of my people, I stopped the carriage to speak 
to him. The same instant there was a crowd of women 
about us. But Connie was the centre of all their regards. 
They hardly looked at her mother or sister. Had she 
been a martyr who had stood the test and received her 
aureole, she could hardly have been more regarded. 
The common use of the word martyr is a curious in- 
stance of how words get degraded. The sufferings in- 
volved in martyrdom, and not the pure will giving occa- 
sion to that suffering, is fixed upon by the common mind 
as the martyrdom. The witness-bearing is lost sight of, 
except we can suppose that “a martyr to the toothache'* 
means a witness of the fact of the toothache and its 
tortures. But while martyrdom really means a bearing 
for the sake of the truth, yet there is a way in which any 
•ufiering, even that we have brought upon ourselves, 


THE JOURNEY. 


*37 


may become martyrdom. When it is so borne that the 
sufferer therein bears witness to the presence and father- 
hood of God, in quiet hopeful submission to his will, in 
gentle endurance, and that effort after cheerfulness which 
is not seldom to be seen where the effort is hardest to 
make ; more than all, perhaps, and rarest of all, when it 
is accepted as the just and merciful consequence of 
wrong-doing, and is endured humbly, and with righteous 
shame, as the cleansing of the Father's hand, indicating 
that repentance unto life which lifts the sinner out oi 
his sins, and makes him such that the holiest men of old 
would talk to him with gladness and respect, then indeed 
it may be called a martyrdom. This latter could not 
be Connie’s case, but the former was hers, and so far 
she might be called a martyr, even as the old women of 
the village designated her. 

After we had again started, our ears were invaded 
with shouts from the post-chaise behind us, in which 
Charlie and Harry, their grief at the abandoned chest 
forgotten as if it had never been, were yelling in the 
exuberance of their gladness. Dora, more staid as be- 
came her years, was trying to act the matron with them 
in vain, and old nursey had enough to do with Miss 
Connie’s baby to heed what the young gentlemen were 
about so long as explosions of noise was all the mis- 
chief. Walter, the man-servant, who had been with us 
ten years, and was the main prop of the establishment, 
looking after everything, and putting his hand to every- 
thing, with an indefinite charge ranging from the nursery 
to the wine cellar, and from the corn-bin to the pig- 


* 3 » 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


trough, and who, as we could not possibly get on without 
him, sat on the box of the post-chaise beside the driver 
from the Griffin, rather connived, I fear, than otherwise 
at the noise of the youngsters. 

“ Good-bye, Marshmallows, w they were shouting at 
the top of their voices, as if they had just been released 
from a prison, where they had spent a wretched child- 
hood ; and as it could hardly offend anybody’s ears on 
the open country road, I allowed them to shout till they 
were tired, which condition fortunately arrived before we 
reache 1 the station, so that there was no occasion for 
me to interfere. I always sought to give them as much 
liberty as could be afforded them. 

At the station we found Weir waiting to see us off, 
with my sister, now in wonderful health. Turner was 
likewise there, and ready to accompany us a good 
part of the way. But beyond the valuable assistance he 
lent us in moving her, no occasion arose for the exercise 
of his professional skill. She bore the journey wonder- 
fully, slept not unfrequently, and only at the end showed 
herself at length wearied. We stopped three times on 
the way; first at Salisbury, where the streams running 
through the streets delighted her. There we remained 
one whole day, but sent the children and servants, all 
but my wife’s maid, on before us, under the charge of 
'Valter. This left us more at our ease. At Exeter, we 
stopped only the night, for Connie found herself quite 
able to go on the next morning. Here Turner left us, 
and we missed him very much. Connie looked a little 
out of spirits after his departure, but soon recovered her- 


THE JOURNEY. 


*39 


self. The next night we spent at a small town on the 
borders of Devonshire, which was the limit of our railway 
travelling. Here we remained for another whole day, for 
the remnant of the journey across part of Devonshire and 
Cornwall to the shore, must be posted, and was a good 
five hours* work. We started about eleven o’clock, full 
of spirits at the thought that we had all but accomplished 
the only part of the undertaking about which we had had 
any uneasiness. Connie was quite merry. The air was 
thoroughly warm. We had an open carriage with a 
hood. Wynnie sat opposite her mother, Dora and Eliza 
the maid in the rumble, and I by the coachman. The 
road being very hilly, we had four horses; and with 
four horses, sunshine, a gentle wind, hope, and thankful- 
ness, who would not be happy 1 

There is a strange delight in motion, which I am not 
sure that I altogether understand. The hope of the end 
as bringing fresh enjoyment has something to do with it, 
no doubt ; the accompaniments of the motion, the 
change of scene, the mystery that lies beyond the next 
hill or the next turn in the road, the breath of the summer 
wind, the scent of the pine-trees especially, and of all 
the earth, the tinkling jangle of the harness as you pass 
the trees on the roadside, the life of the horses, the glitter 
and the shadow, the cottages and the roses and the rosy 
faces, the scent of burning wood or peat from the chim- 
neys, — these and a thousand other things combine to 
make such a journey delightful. But I believe it needs 
something more than this — something even closer to the 
human life — to account for the pleasure that motion gives 


140 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


us I suspect it is its living symbolism ; the hidden re- 
lations which it bears to the eternal soul in its aspirations 
and longings — ever following after, ever attaining, never 
satisfied. Do not misunderstand me, my reader. A 
man, you will allow, perhaps, may be content although 
he is not and cannot be happy : I feel inclined to turn 
all this the other way, saying that a man ought always 
to be happy, never to be content. You will see I do 
not say contented ; I say content. Here comes in his 
faith : his life is hid with Christ in God, measureless, 
unbounded. All things are his, to become his by 
blessed, lovely gradations of gift, as his being enlarges 
to receive ; and if ever the shadow of his own necessary 
incompleteness falls upon the man, he has only to re- 
member that in God’s idea he is complete, only his life 
is hid from himself with Christ in God the Infinite. If 
any one accuses me here of mysticism, I plead guilty with 
gladness : I only hope it may be of that true mysticism 
which, inasmuch as he makes constant use of it, St Paul 
would understand at once. I leave it, however. 

I think I must have been the very happiest of the 
party myself. No doubt I was younger much than I am 
now, but then I was quite middle-aged, with full confes- 
sion thereof, in gray hairs and wrinkles. Why should 
not a man be happy when he is growing old, so long as 
his faith strengthens the feeble knees which chiefly suf- 
fer in the process of going down the hill ? True, the 
fever heat is over, and the oil bums more slowly in the 
lamp of life ; but if there is less fervour, there is more 
pervading warmth ; if less of fire, more of sunshine; 


THE JOURNEY. 


«4I 


there is less smoke and more light. Verily, youth is 
good, but old age is better — to the man who forsakes 
not his youth when his youth forsakes him. The sweet 
visitings of nature do not depend upon youth or romance, 
but upon that quiet spirit whose meekness inherits the 
earth. The smell of that field of beans gives me more 
delight now than ever it could have given me when I 
was a youth. And if I ask myself why, I find it is simply 
because I have more faith now than I had then. It 
came to me then as an accident of nature — a passing 
pleasure flung to me only as the dogs’ share of the crumbs. 
N ow, I believe that God means that odour of the bean- 
field ; that when Jesus smelled such a scent about Jeru- 
salem or in Galilee, he thought of his Father. And if 
God means it, it is mine, even if I should never smell it 
again. The music of the spheres is mine if old age 
should make me deaf as the adder. Am I mystical 
again, reader? Then I hope you are too, or will be 
before you have done with this same beautiful mystical 
life of ours. More and more nature becomes to me one 
of God’s books of poetry — not his grandest — that is 
history — but his loveliest, perhaps. 

And ought I not to have been happy when all who 
were with me were happy? I will not run the risk of 
wearying even my contemplative reader by describing to 
him the various reflexes of happiness that shone from the 
countenances behind me in the carriage, but I will try 
to hit each off in a word or a single simile. My Ethel- 
wyn’s face was bright with the brightness of a pale silvery 
moon that has done I er harvest work, and, a little weary. 


* 4 * 


TH* SEABOARD PARISH. 


lifts herself again into the deeper heavens from stooping 
towards the earth. Wynnie’s face was bright with the 
brightness of the morning star, ever growing pale and 
faint over the amber ocean that brightens at the sun’s 
approach ; for life looked to Wynnie severe in its light, 
and somewhat sad because severe. Connie’s face was 
bright with the brightness of a lake in the rosy evening, 
the sound of the river flowing in and the sound of the 
river flowing forth just audible, but itself still, and con- 
tent to be still and mirror the sunset. Dora’s was bright 
with the brightness of a marigoid that follows the sun 
without knowing it ; and Eliza’s was bright with the 
brightness of a half-blown cabbage rose, radiating good- 
humour. This last is not a good simile, but I cannot 
find a better. I confess failure, and go on. 

After stopping once to bait, during which operation 
Connie begged to be carried into the parlour of the 
little inn, that she might see* the china figures that were 
certain to be on the chimney-piece, as indeed they were, 
where she drank a whole tumbler of new milk before we 
lifted her to carry her back, we came upon a wide high 
moorland country, the roads through which were lined 
with gorse in full golden bloom, while patches of heather 
all about were showing their bells, though not yet in 
their autumnal outburst of purple lire. Here I began 
to be reminded of Scotland, in which I had travelled 
a good deal between the ages of twenty and five-and 
twenty. The further I went the stronger I felt the 
resemblance. The look of the fields, the stone fences 
that divided them, the shape and colour and materials 


THE JOURNEY. 


M3 


of the houses, the aspect of the people, the feeling of 
the air, and of the earth and sky generally, made me 
imagine myself in a milder and more favoured Scotland. 
The west wind was fresh, but had none of that sharp 
edge which one can so often detect in otherwise warm 
winds blowing under a hot sun. Though she had 
already travelled so many miles, Connie brightened up 
within a few minutes after we got on this moor; and 
we had not gone much farther before a shout from the 
rumble informed us that keen-eyed little Dora had 
discovered the Atlantic : a dip in the high coast revealed 
it blue and bright. We soon lost sight of it again, but 
in Connie’s eyes it seemed to linger still. As often as 
I looked round, the blue of them seemed the reflection 
of the sea in their little convex mirrors. Ethelwyn’s 
eyes, too, were full of it, and a flush on her generally 
pale cheek showed that she too expected the ocean. 
After a few miles along this breezy expanse, we began 
to descend towards the sea-level. Down the winding of 
a gradual slope interrupted by steep descents, we ap- 
proached this new chapter in our history. We came 
again upon a few trees here and there, all with their 
tops cut off in a plane inclined upwards away from the 
sea. For the sea-winds, like a sweeping scythe, bend 
the trees all away towards the land, and keep their tops 
mown with their sharp rushing, keen with salt spray of! 
the crests of the broken waves. Then we passed through 
some ancient villages, with streets narrow and steep 
and sharp-angled, that needed careful driving and the 
frequent pressure of the brake upon the wheel. And 


*44 


THE SEABOARD PARIS* II. 


now the sea shone upon us with nearer greeting, and 
we began to fancy we could hear its talk with the shore. 
At length we descended a sharp hill, reached the last 
level, drove over a bridge and down the line of the 
stream, saw the land vanish in the sea — a wide bay ; 
then drove over another wooden drawbridge, and along 
the side of a canal, in which lay half-a-dozen sloops 
and schooners. Then came a row of pretty cottages ; 
then a gate, and an ascent ; and ere we reached the 
tectory, we were aware of its proximity by loud shouts, 
and the sight of Charlie and Harry scampering along 
the top of a stone wall to meet us. This made their 
mother nervous, but she kept quiet, knowing that un- 
restrained anxiety is always in danger of bringing about 
the evil it fears. A moment after, we drew up at a 
long porch, leading through the segment of a circle to 
the door of the house. The journey was over. We got 
down in the little village of Kilkhaven, in the county 
of Cornwall. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


WHAT WE DID WHEN WE ARRIVED. 

E carried Connie in first of all, of course, and 
into the room which nurse had fixed upoa 
for her — the best in the house, of course, 
again. She did seem tired now, and no 
wonder She had a cup of tea at once, and in half-an- 
hour dinner was ready, of which we were all very glad. 
After dinner, I went up to Connie's room. There I 
found her fast asleep on the sofa, and Wynnie as fast 
asleep on the floor beside her. The drive and the sea 
air had had the same effect on both of them.' But 
pleased as I was to see Connie sleeping so sweetly, I 
was even more pleased to see Wynnie asleep on the 
floor. What a wonderful satisfaction it may give to a 
father and mother to see this or that child asleep ! It 
is when her kittens are asleep that the cat creeps away 
to look after her own comforts. Our cat chose to have 



146 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


her kittens in my study once, and as I would not have 
her further disturbed than to give them another cushion 
to lie cn in place of that which belonged to my sofa, I 
had many opportunities of watching them as I wrote, or 
prepared my sermons. But I must not talk about the 
cat and her kittens now. When parents see their 
children asleep, especially if they have been suffering 
in any way, they breathe more freely; a load is lifted 
off their minds ; their responsibility seems over ; the 
children have gone back to their Father, and he alone 
is looking after them for a while. Now, I had not been 
comfortable about Wynnie for some time, and especially 
during our journey, and still more especially during the 
last part of our journey. There was something amiss 
with her. She seemed constantly more or less dejected, 
as if she had something to think about that was too 
mucn for her, although, to tell the truth, I really believe 
now that she had not quite enough to think about 
Some people can thrive tolerably without much thought: 
at least, they both live comfortably without it, and do 
not seem to be capable of effecting it if it were required 
of them ; while for others a large amount of mental and 
spiritual operation is necessary for the health of both 
body and mind, and when the matter or occasion for so 
much is not afforded them, the consequence is analogous 
to what follows when a healthy physical system is not 
supplied with sufficient food : the oxygen, the source of 
life, begins to consume the life itself; it tears up the 
timbers of the house to burn against the cold. Or, to 
use a different simile, when the Moses-rod of tircuia* 


WHAT WE DID WHEN WE ARRIVED, 


147 


stance does not strike the rock and make the waters 
flow, such a mind — one that must think to live — will go 
digging into itself, and is in danger of injuring the very 
fountain of thought, by drawing away its living water 
into ditches and stagnant pools. This was, I say, the 
case in part with my Wynnie, although I did not under- 
stand it at that moment. She did not look quite happy, 
did not always meet a smile with a smile, looked almost 
reprovingly upon the frolics of the little brother-imps, 
and though kindness itself when any real hurt or grief 
befell them, had reverted to her old, somewhat dicta- 
torial manner, of which I have already spoken as 
interrupted by Connie’s accident. To her mother and 
me she was service itself, only service without the smile 
which is as the flame of the sacrifice and makes it holy. 
So we were both a little uneasy about her, for we did 
not understand her. On the journey she had seemed 
almost annoyed at Connie’s ecstasies, and said to Dora 
many times — “ Do be quiet, Dora;” although there was 
not a single creature but ourselves within hearing, and 
poor Connie seemed only delighted with the child’s 
explosions. So I was — but although I say so, I hardly 
know why I was pleased to see her thus, except it was 
from a vague belief in the anodyne of slumber. But 
» this pleasure did not last long; for as I stood regarding 
my two treasures, even as if my eyes had made her 
uncomfortable, she suddenly opened hers, and started 
to her feet, with the words, “ I beg your pardon, papa," 
looking almost guiltily round her, and putting up her 
hail huniedly, as if she had committed an impropriety 


i 4 8 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


in being caught untidy. This was fresh sign of a con- 
dition of mind that was not healthy. 

“ My dear,” I said, “ what do you beg my pardon for I 
I was so pleased to see you asleep ! and you look as if 
you thought I were going to scold you.” 

“ O papa,” she said, laying her head on my shoulder, 
* I am afraid I must be very naughty. I so often feel 
now as if I were doing something wrong, or rather as if 
you would think I was doing something wrong. I am 
sure there must be something wicked in me somewhere, 
though I do not clearly know what it is. When I woke 
up now, I felt as if I had neglected something, and yon 
had come to find fault with me. Is there anything 
papa ? ” 

“ Nothing whatever, my child. But you cannot be 
well when you feel like that.” 

“ I am perfectly well, so far as I know. I was so cross 
to Dora to-day! Why shouldn’t I feel happy when 
everybody else is ? I must be wicked, papa.” 

Here Connie woke up. 

u There now ! I ’ve waked Connie,” Wynnie resumed. 
“I’m always doing something I ought not to do. Please 
go to sleep again, Connie, and take that sin off my poor 
conscience.” 

“What nonsense is Wynnie talking about being 
nicked ? n asked Connie. 

u It isn *t nonsense, Connie. You know I am.” 

“ I know nothing of the sort, Wynnie. If it were me 
now J And yet I don’t feel wicked.” 

“ My dear children,” I said, “ we must all pray to God 


WHAT WK DID WHEN WE ARRIVED, 


149 


for his Spirit, and then we shall feel just as we ought to 
feel. It is not for any one to say to himself how he 
ought to feel at any given moment ; still less for one man 
to say to another how he ought to feel ; that is in the 
former case to do as St Paul says he had learned to give 
up doing — to judge our own selves, which ought to be 
left to God ; in the latter case it is to do what our Lord 
has told us expressly we are not to do — to judge other 
people. You get your bonnet, Wynnie, and come out 
with me. I am going to explore a little of this desert 
island upon which we have been cast away. And you, 
Connie, just to please Wynnie, must try and go to sleep 
again.” 

Wynnie ran for her bonnet, a little afraid perhaps tha* 
I was going to talk seriously to her, but show'rg no re- 
luctance anyhow to accompany me. 

Now I wonder whether it will be better to tell what 
we saw, or only what we talked about, and give what we 
6aw in the shape in which we reported it to Connie, when 
we came back into her room, bearing, like the spies who 
went to search the land, our bunch of grapes, that is, of 
gweet news of nature, to her who could not go to gather 
them for herself. I think it will be the best plan to take 
part of both plans. 

When we left the door of the house, we went up the 
few steps of a stair leading on to the downs, against 2 nd 
amidst, and indeed in, the rocks buttressing the sea-edge 
of which our new abode was built. A life for a big- 
winged angel seemed waiting us upon those downs. 
The wind still blew from the west, both warm and 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


rso 


strong — I mean strength-giving — and the wind was the 
first thing we were aware of. The ground underfoot 
was green and soft and springy, and sprinkled all over 
with the bright flowers, chiefly yellow, that live amidst 
the short grasses of the downs, the shadows of whose 
unequal surface were now beginning to be thrown east, 
for the sun was going seawards. I stood up, stretched 
out my arms, threw back my shoulders and my head, 
and filled my chest with a draught of the delicious wind, 
feeling thereafter like a giant refreshed with wine. Wyn- 
nie stood apparently unmoved amidst the life-nectar, 
thoughtful, and turning her eyes hither and thither. 

“ That makes me feel young again,” I said. 

“I wish it would make me feel old then,” said 
Wynnie. 

“ What do you mean, my child ? ” 

“ Because then I should have a chance of knowing 
what it is like to feel young,” she answered rather enig- 
matically. I did not reply. We were walking up the 
brow which hid the sea from us. The smell of the down- 
turf was indescribable in its homely delicacy ; and by the 
time we had reached the top, almost every sense was 
filled with its own delight. The top of the hill was the 
edge of the great shore-cliff ; and the sun was hanging on 
the face of the mightier sky-cliff opposite, and the sea 
stretched for visible miles and miles along the shore on 
either hand, its wide blue mantle fringed with lovely 
white wherever it met the land, and scalloped into all 
fantastic curves, according to the whim of the nether 
fires which had formed its bed ; and the rush of the 


WHAT WE DID WHEN WE ARRIVED. 


151 


waves, as they bore the rising tide up on the shore, was 
the one music fit for the whole. Ear and eye, touch and 
smell, were alike invaded with blessedness. I ought to 
have kept this to give my reader in Connie’s room ; but 
he shall share with her presently. The sense of space — 
of mighty room for life and growth filled my soul, and I 
thanked God in my heart. The wind seemed to bear 
that growth into my soul, even as the wind of God first 
breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and the 
sun was the pledge of the fulfilment of every aspiration. 
I turned and looked at Wynnie. She stood pleased but 
listless amidst that which lifted me into the heaven o i 
the Presence. 

‘‘Don’t you enjoy all this grandeur, Wynnie ?” 

“ I told you I was very wicked, papa.” 

“ And I told you not to say so, Wynnie.” 

“ You see I cannot enjoy it, papa. I wonder why it 
is.” 

“ I suspect it is because you haven’t room, Wynnie.” 

“ I know you mean something more than I know, 
papa.” 

“I mean, my dear, that it is not because you are 
wicked, but because you do not know God well enough, 
and therefore your being, which can only live in him, is 
‘cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in* It is only in 
him that the soul has room. In knowing him, is life 
and its gladness. The secret of youi own heart you can 
never know; but you can know Him who knows its 
secret Look up, my darling ; see the heavens and the 
earth. You do not feel them, and I do not call upon 


152 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


you to feel them. It would be both useless and absurd 
to do so. But just let them look at you for a moment, 
and then tell me whether it must not be a blessed life 
that creates such a glory as this All.” 

She stood silent for a moment, looked up at the sky, 
looked round on the earth, looked far across the sea to 
the setting sun, and then turned her eyes upon me. 
They were filled with tears, but whether from feeling or 
sorrow that she could not feel, I would not inquire. I 
made haste to speak again. 

“ As this world of delight surrounds and enteis your 
bodily frame, so does God surround your soul and live 
in it. To be at home with the awful source of your 
being, through the child-like faith which he not only 
permits, but requires, and is ever teaching you, or rather 
seeking to rouse up in you, is the only cure for such 
feelings as those that trouble you. Do not say it is too 
high for you. God made you in his own image, there- 
fore capable of understanding him. For this final end he 
sent his Son, that the Father might with him come into 
you, and dwell with you. Till he does so, the temple 
of your soul is vacant ; there is no light behind the veil, 
no cloudy pillar over it ; and the priests, your thoughts, 
feelings, loves, and desires, moan and are troubled — for 
where is the work of the priest when the god is not there i 
When He comes to you, no mystery, no unknown feeling 
will any longer distress you. You will say, 4 He knows, 
though I do not/ And you will be at the secret of the 
things he has made. You will feel what they are, and 
that which his will created in gladness you will receive 


WHAT WE DID WHEN WE ARRIVED. 


*53 


In joy. One glimmer of the present God in this glory 
would send you home singing. But do not think I blame 
you, Wynnie, for feeling sad. I take it rather as the sign 
of a large life in you, that will not be satisfied with little 
things. I do not know when or how it may please God 
to give you the quiet of mind that you need ; but I tell 
you that I believe it is to be had ; and, in the mean- 
time, you must go on doing your work, trusting in God 
even for this. Tell him to look at your sorrow, ask 
him to come and set it right, making the joy go up in 
your heart by his presence. I do not know when this 
may be, I say, but you must have patience, and till he 
lays his hand on your head, you must be content to 
wash his feet with your tears. Only he will be better 
pleased if your faith keep you from weeping and from 
going about your duties mournful. Try to be brave and 
cheerful for the sake of Christ, and for the sake of your 
confidence in the beautiful teaching of God, whose 
course and scope you cannot yet understand. Trust, my 
daughter, and let that give you courage and strength.” 

Now the sky and the sea and the earth must have 
made me able to say these things to her ; but I knew 
that, whatever the immediate occasion of her sadness, 
such was its only real cure. Other things might, in 
virtue of the will of God that was in them, give her oc- 
cupation and interest enough for a time, but nothmg 
would, do finally, but God himself. Here I was sure I 
was safe; here I knew lay the hunger of humanity. 
Humanity may, like other vital forms, diseased systems; 
fix on this or that as the object not merely of its Jesira 


*54 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


but of its need : it can never be stilled by less than the 
bread of life — the very presence in the innermost nature 
of the Father and the Son. 

We walked on together. Wynnie made me no reply, 
but, weeping silently, clung to my arm. We walked a 
long way by the edge of the cliffs, beheld the sun go 
down, and then turned and went home. When we 
reached the house, Wynnie left me, saying only, “ Thank 
you, papa. I think it is all true. I will try to be a 
better girl.” 

I went straight to Connie’s room : she was lying as I 
saw her last, looking out of her window. 

“Connie,” I said, “Wynnie and I have had such a 
treat — such a sunset ! ” 

“ I ’ve seen a little of the light of it on the waves in 
the bay there, but the high ground kept me from seeing 
the sunset itself Did it set in the sea 1 ” 

“You do want the General Gazetteer, after all, Connie. 
Is that water the Atlantic, or is it not ? And if it be, 
where on earth could the sun set but in it ? ” 

“ Of course, papa. What a goose I am ! But don’t 
make game of me — please . I am too deliciousl)' 1 happy 
to be made game of to-night.” 

“ I won’t make game of you, my darling. I will tell 
you about the sunset — the colours of it, at least. This 
must be one of the best places hi the whole world to see 
sunsets.*' 

“But you have had no tea, papa. I thought you 
would come and have your tea with me. But you were 
•O long that mamma would not let me wait any longer" 


WHAT WE DID WHEN WE ARRIVED. 


*55 


44 Oh, never mind the tea, my dear. But Wynnie has 
had none. You ’ve got a tea-caddy of your own, haven’t 
you?” 

“Yes, and a teapot; and there’s the kettle on the 
hob — for I can’t do without a little fire in the even- 
ings.” 

“ Then I ’ll make some tea for Wynnie and myself, and 
tell you at the same time about the sunset. I never saw 
such colours. I cannot tell you what it was like while 
the sun was yet going down, for the glory of it has burned 
the memory of it out of me. But after the sun was down, 
the sky remained thinking about him ; and the thought of 
the sky was in delicate translucent green on the horizon, 
just the colour of the earth etherealised and glorified — a 
broad band; then came another broad band of pale 
rose-colour ; and above that came the sky’s own eternal 
blue, pale likewise, but so sure and changeless. I never 
saw the green and the blue divided and harmonised by 
the rose-colour before. It was a wonderful sight If 
it is warm enough to-morrow, we will carry you out 
on the height, that you may see what the evening will 
bring.” 

“ There is one thing about sunsets,” returned Connie 
— “ two things, that make me rather sad — about them- 
selves, not about anything else. Shall I tell you 
them?” 

“ Do, my love. There are few things more precious 
to learn than the effects of Nature upon individual minds. 
And there is not a feeling of yours, my child, that is not 
of value to me.” 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


«5<S 


“ You are so kind, papa ! I am so glad of my accident ! 
I think 1 should never have known how good you are 
but for that But my thoughts seem so little worth afte> 
you say so much about them.” 

“ Let me be judge of that, my dear.” 

“ Well, one thing is, that we shall never, never, nevei 
see the same sunset again.” 

“ That is true. But why should we 1 God does not 
care to do the same thing over again. When it is once 
done, it is done, and he goes on doing something new. 
For, to all eternity, he never will have done showing him- 
self by new, fresh things. It would be a loss to do the 
same thing again.” 

“But that just brings me to my second trouble. The 
thing is lost. 1 forget it. Do what I can, I cannot re- 
member sunsets. I try to fix them fast in my memory, 
that I may recall them when I want them ; but just as 
they fade out of the sky, all into blue or gray, so they 
fade out of my mind, and leave it as if they had never 
been there — except perhaps two or three. Now, though 
I did not see this one, yet, after you have talked about 
it, I shall never forget it.'* 

“ It is not, and never will be, as if they had never been. 
They have their influence, and leave that far deeper than 
your memory — in your very being, Connie. But I have 
more to say about it, although it is only an idea, hardly 
an assurance. Our brain is necessarily an impel feet in- 
strument. For its right work, perhaps it is needful that 
it should forget in part. But there are grounds fo? 
believing that nothing is ever really forgotten I think 


WHAT WE DID WHEN WE ARRIVED). 


ISI 


that, when we have a higher existence than we have now, 
when we are clothed with that spiritual body of which St 
Paul speaks, you will be able to recall any sunset you 
have ever seen, with an intensity proportioned to the 
degree of regard and attention you gave it when it was 
present to you. But here comes Wynnie to see how you 
are. I ’ve been making some tea for you, Wynnie, my 
love.** 

“ Oh, thank you, papa — I shall be so glad of some 
tea ! ” said Wynnie, the paleness of whose face showed 
the red rims of her eyes the more plainly. She had had 
what girls call a good cry, and was clearly the better 
for it. 

The same moment my wife came in. 

“ Why didn’t you send for me, Harry, to get your tea? * 
she said. 

“I did not deserve any, seeing I had disregarded proper 
times and seasons. But I knew you must be busy.” 

“ I have been superintending the arrangement of bed- 
rooms, and the unpacking, and twenty different things,” 
said Ethel wyn. “ We shall be so comfortable ! It is 
such a curious house ! Have you had a nice walk ? " 

“Mamma, I never had such a walk in my life," 
returned Wynnie. “ You would think the shore had been 
built for the sake of the show — just for a platform to see 
sunsets from. And the sea ! Only the cliffs will be 
rather dangerous for the children.” 

“I have just been telling Connie about the sunset 
She could see something of the co ours on the water, but 
not much more.” 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


fC8 


" Oh, Connie, it will be so delightful to get you out 
here I Everything is so big ! There is such room 
everywhere ! But it must be awfully windy in winter," 
said Wynnie, whose nature was always a little prospective, 
if nor apprehensive. 

But I must not keep my reader longer upon mere 
family chat 


CHAPTER xrv. 


MORE ABOUT KILKHAVEN. 

UR dining-room was one story below the 
level at which we had entered the parson- 
age ; for, as I have said, the house was built 
into the face of the cliff, just where it sunk 
nearly to the level of the shores of the bay. While at 
dinner, on the evening of our arrival, I kept looking from 
the window, of course, and saw before me, first a little 
bit of garden, mostly in turf, then a low stone wall ; 
beyond, over the top of the wall, the blue water of the 
bay; then beyond the water, all alive with light and 
motion, the rocks and sand-hills of the opposite side of 
the little bay, not a quarter of a mile across. I could 
likewise see where the shore went sweeping out and 
away to the north, with rock after rock standing far into 
the water, as if gazing over the awful wild, where there 
was nothing to break the deathly waste between Corn- 
wall and Newfoundland. But for the moment 1 did not 



THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


160 


regard the huge power lying outside so much as the 
merry blue bay between me and those rocks and sand- 
hills. If I moved my head a little to the right, I saw, 
over the top of the low wall already mentioned, and 
apparently quite close to it, the slender yellow masts of 
a schooner, her mainsail hanging loose from the gaff, 
whose peak was lowered. We must, I thought, be on 
the very harbour-quay. When I went out for my walk 
with Wynnie, I had turned from the bay, and gene to the 
brow of the cliffs overhanging the open sea on our side 
of it. 

When I came down to breakfast in the same room 
next morning, I stared. The blue had changed to 
yellow. The life of the water was gone. Nothing met 
my eyes but a wide expanse of dead sand. You could 
walk straight across the bay to the hills opposite From 
the look of the. rocks, from the perpendicular cliffs on 
the coast, I had almost, without thinking, concluded 
that we were on the shore of a deep-water bay. It was 
high-water, or nearly so, then ; and now, when I looked 
westward, it was over a long reach of sands, on the 
far border of which the white fringe of the waves was 
visible, as if there was their hitherto , and further towards 
us they could not come. Beyond the fringe lay the 
low hill of the Atlantic. To add to my confusion, when 
1 looked to the right, that is, up the bay towards the 
land, there was no schooner there. I went out at the 
window, which opened from the room upon the little 
lawn, to look, and then saw in a moment how it was. 

“ Do you know, my dear,” I said to my wife, u we 


MORE ABOUT KILKHAVEN. 


i6i 


are just at the mouth of that canal vve saw as we came 
along? There are gates and a lock just outside there. 
The schooner that was under this window last night 
must have gone in with the tide. She is lying in the 
basin above now.” 

“ Oh, yes, papa,” Charlie and Harry broke in to- 
gether. “We saw it go up this morning. We ’ve been 
out ever so long. It was so funny,” Charlie went on — 
everything was funny with Charlie — “ to see it rise up 
like a Jack-in-the-box, and then slip into the quiet water 
through the other gates ! ” 

And when I thought about the waves tumbling and 
breaking away out there, and the wide yellow sands be- 
tween, it was wonderful — which was what Charlie meant 
by funny — to see the little vessel lying so many feet 
above it all, in a still plenty of repose, gathering strength, 
one might fancy, to rush out again, when its time was 
come, into the turmoil beyond, and dash its way through 
the breasts of the billows. 

After breakfast vve had prayers, as usual, and after a 
visit to Connie, whom I found tired, but wonderfully 
well, I went out for a walk by myself, to explore the 
neighbourhood, find the church, and, in a word, do 
something to shake myself into my new garments. The 
day was glorious. I wandered along a green path, in 
the opposite direction from our walk the evening before, 
with a fir-wood on my right hand, and a belt of feathery 
tamarisks on my left, behind which lay gardens sloping 
steeply to a lower road, where stood a few pretty cot- 
tages. Turning a corner, I came suddenly in sight of 

L 


i6a 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


the church, on the green down above me — a sheltered 
yet commanding situation ; for, while the hill rose above 
it, protecting it from the east, it looked down the bay, 
and the Atlantic lay open before it. All the earth seemed 
to lie behind it, and all its gaze to be fixed on the symbol 
of the infinite. It stood as the church ought to stand, 
leading men up the mount of vision, to the verge of the 
eternal, to send them back with their hearts full of the 
strength that springs from hope, by which alone the true 
work of the world can be done. And when I saw it, I 
rejoiced to think that once more I was favoured with a 
church that had a history. Of course it is a happy thing 
to see new churches built wherever there is need of 
such ; but to the full idea of the building it is necessary 
that it should be one in which the hopes and fears, the 
cares and consolations, the loves and desires of our fore- 
fathers should have been roofed , where the hearts of 
those through whom our country has become that which 
it is — from whom not merely the life-blood of our bodies, 
but the life-blood of our spirits, has come down to us, 
whose existence and whose efforts have made it possible 
for us to be that which we are — have before us wor- 
shipped that Spirit from whose fountain the whole tor- 
rent of being flows, who ever pours fresh streams into the 
wearying waters of humanity, so ready to settle down 
into a stagnant repose. Therefore, I would far rather, 
when I may, worship in an old church, whose very stones 
are a history of how men strove to realize the infinite, 
compelling even the powers of nature into the task as 1 
soon found on the very doorway of this chuich, where 


MORE ABOUT KILKHAVEN. 


16^ 


the ripples of the outspread ocean, and grotesque imagi- 
nations of the monsters of its deeps, fixed, as it might 
seem, for ever in stone, gave a distorted reflex, from the 
little mirror of the artist’s mind, of that mighty water, so 
awful, so significant to the human eye, which yet lies in 
the hollow of the Father s palm, like the handful that 
the weary traveller lifts from the brook by the way. It 
is in virtue of the truth that went forth in such and such 
like attempts that we are able to hold our portion of 
the infinite reality which God only knows. They have 
founded our Church for us, and such a church as this 
will stand for the symbol of it ; for here we too can 
worship the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob — 
the God of Sidney, of Hooker, of Herbert. This church 
of Kilkhaven, old and worn, rose before me a history in 
stone — so beaten and swept about by the “ wild west 
wind,” 

“For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers 
Cleave themselves into chasms,” 

and so streamed upon, and washed, and dissolved, by 
the waters lifted from the sea and borne against it on 
the upper tide of the wind, that you could almost fancy 
it one of those churches that have been buried for ages 
beneath the encroaching waters, lifted again, by some 
mighty revulsion of nature’s heart, into the air of the 
<sweet heavens, there to stand marked for ever with the 
tide-flows of the nether world — scooped, and hollowed, 
and worn like aeonian rocks that have slowly but for 
ever responded to the swirl and eddy of the wearing 
waters, from the most troublous of times will the 


104 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


Church of our land arise, in virtue of what truth she 
holds, and in spite, if she rises at all, of the worldliness 
of those who, instead of seeking her service, have sought 
and gained the dignities which, if it be good that she 
have it in her power to bestow them, need the corrective 
of a sharply wholesdhie persecution, which of late times 
she has not known. But God knows, and the fire will 
come in its course — first in the form of just indignation, 
it may be, against her professed servants, and then in 
the form of the furnace seven times heated, in which the 
true builders shall yet walk unhurt save as to their 
mortal part 

I looked about for some cottage where the sexton 
might be supposed to live, and spied a slated roof, 
nearly on a level with the road, at a little distance in 
front of me. I could at least inquire there. Before 
I reached it, however, an elderly woman came out and 
approached me. She was dressed in a white cap and 
a dark-coloured gown. On her face lay a certain repose 
which attracted me. She looked as if she had suffered, 
but had consented to it, and therefore could smile. Her 
smile lay near the surface. A kind word was enough 
to draw it up from the well where it lay shimmering : 
you could always see the smile there, whether it was born 
or not. But even when she smiled, in the very glimmer- 
ing of that moonbeam, you could see the deep, still, 
perhaps dark, waters under. Oh ! if one could but 
understand what goes on in the souls that have no words, 
perhaps no inclination to set it forth ! What had she 
endured? How had she learned to have that smile 


MORE ABOUT KILK HAVEN* 


l6| 


always near? What had consoled her, and yet left 
her her grief — turned it, perhaps, into hope ? Should 
I ever know ? 

She drew near me, as if she would have passed me, as 
she would have done, had I not spoken. I think she 
came towards me to give me the opportunity of speak- 
ing if I wished, but she would not address me. 

“ Good morning,” I said. “ Can you tell me where 
to find the sexton?” 

“ Well, sir,” she answered, with a gleam of the smile 
brightening underneath her old skin, as it were, “ I be 
all the sexton you be likely to find this mornin*, sir. My 
husband, he be gone out to see one o’ Squire Tregarva’s 
hounds as was took ill last night. So if you want to see 
the old church, sir, you ’ll have to be content with an 
old woman to show you, sir.” 

“ I shall be quite content, I assure you,” I answered 
“ Will you go and get the key 1 ” 

“ I have the key in my pocket, sir ; for I thought 
that would be what you’d be after, sir. And by the 
time you come to my age, sir, you ’ll learn to think of 
your old bones, sir. I beg your pardon for making so 
free. For mayhap, says I to myself, he be the gentle- 
man as be come to take Mr Shepherd’s duty for him. 
Be ye now, sir ? ” 

All this was said in a slow sweet subdued tone, nearly 
ot one pitch. You would have felt that she claimed the 
privilege of age with a kind of mournful gaiety, but was 
careful, and anxious even, not to presume upon it, and 
therefore gentle as a young girL 


i66 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


u Yes ,” I answered. “ My name is Walton. I have 
come to take the place of my friend Mr Shepherd ; and, 
of course, I want to see the church.” 

**' Well, she be a bee-utiful old church. Some things, 
I think, sir, grows more beautiful the older they grows. 
But it ain’t us, sir.” 

“ I ’m not so sure of that,” I said. “ What do you 
mean ? ” 

‘Well, sir, there's my little grandson in the cottage 
tnere : he ’ll never be so beautiful again. Them children 
du be the loves. But we all grows uglier as we grows 
older. Churches don’t seem to, sir.” 

’m not so sure about all that,” I said again. 

“ They did say, sir, that I was a pretty girl once. 
I ’m not much to look at now.” 

And she smiled with such a gracious amusement, that 
I felt at once that if there was any vanity left in this 
memory of her past loveliness, it was as sweet as the 
memory of their old fragrance left in the withered leaves 
of the roses. 

“ But it du not matter, du it, sir 1 Beauty is only 
skin-deep.” 

“ I don’t believe that,” I answered. “ Beauty is as 
deep as the heart at least.” 

“Well, to be sure, my old husband du say I be as 
handsome in his eyes as ever I be. But I beg your 
pardon, sir, for talkin’ about myself. I believe it was 
the old church — she set us on to it” 

“ The old church didn’t lead you into any harm then,” 
I answered. “ The beauty that is in the heart will shine 


MORE ABOUT KILKHAVEN. 


16) 


out of the face again some day — be sure of that. And 
after all, there is just the same kind of beauty in a good 
old face that there is in an old church. You can’t say 
the church is so trim and neat as it was the day that the 
first blast of the organ filled it as with a living soul. The 
carving is not quite so sharp, the timbers are not quite 
so clean. There is a good deal of mould and worm- 
eating and cobwebs about the old place. Yet both you 
and I think it more beautiful now than it was then. 
Well, I believe it is, as nearly as possible, the same with 
an old face. It has got stained, and weather-beaten, and 
worn ; but if the organ of truth has been playing on inside 
the temple of the Lord, which St Paul says our bodies 
are, there is in the old face, though both form and com- 
plexion are gone, just the beauty of the music inside. 
The wrinkles and the brownness can’t spoil it A light 
shines through it all — that of the indwelling spirit. I 
wish we all grew old like the old churches.” 

She did not reply, but I thought I saw in her face that 
she understood my mysticism. We had been walking 
very slowly, had passed through the quaint lych-gate, 
and now the old woman had got the key in the lock of 
the door, whose archway was figured and fashioned as I 
have described above, with a dozen moulding} 01 more, 
Dost of them “ carved so curiously.” 


CHAPTER XV. 


THE OLD CHURCH. 

E awe that dwells in churches fell upon me 
as I crossed the threshold — an awe I never 
fail to feel — heightened, in many cases, no 
doubt, by the sense of antiquity and of art, 
but an awe which I have felt all the same in crossing 
the threshold of an old Puritan conventicle, as the place 
where men worship and have worshipped the God of 
their fathers, although for art there was only the science 
of common bricklaying, and for beauty staring ugliness. 
To the involuntary fancy, the air of petition and of holy 
need seems to linger in the place, and the uncovered 
head acknowledges the sacred symbols of human aspira- 
tion and divine revealing. But this was no ordinary 
church into which I followed the gentlewoman who was 
my guide. As entering I turned my eyes eastward, a 
flush of subdued glory invaded them from the chancel, 
all the windows of which were of richly-stained glass, 



and the roof of carved oak lavishly gilded. I had my 
thoughts about this chancel, and thence about chancels 
generally, which may appear in another part of my story. 
Now I have to do only with the church, not with the 
cogitations to which it gave rise. But I will not trouble 
my reader with even what I could tell him of the blend- 
ing and contradicting of styles and modes of architec- 
tural thought in the edifice. Age is to the, work of 
contesting human hands a wonderful harmonizer of 
differences. As nature brings into harmony all fractures 
of her frame, and even positive intrusions upon her 
realm* dothes and discolours them, in the old sense of 
the word, so that at length there is no immediate shock 
at sight of that which in itself was crude, and is yet 
coarse, so the various architecture of this building had 
been gone over after the builders by the musical hand 
of Eld, with wonder of delicate transition and change of 
key, that one could almost fancy the music of its ex- 
quisite organ had been at work informing the building, 
half-melting the sutures, wearing the sharpness, and 
blending the angles, until in some parts there was but 
the gentle flickering of the original conception left, all 
its self-assertion vanished under the file of the air and 
the gnawing of the worm. True, the hand of the 
restorer had been busy, but it had wrought lovingly and 
gently, and wherein it had erred, the same influences of 
nature, though as yet their effects were invisible, were 
already at work — of the many making one. I will not 
trouble my reader, I say, with any architectural descrip- 
tion, which, possibly even more than a detailed deserjp- 


170 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


tion of natural beauty dissociated from human feeling, 
would only weary him, even if it were not unintelligible. 
When we are reading a poem, we do not first of all 
examine the construction and dwell on the rhymes and 
rhythms ; all that comes after, if we find that the poem 
itself is so good that its parts are therefor worth examin- 
ing, as being probably good in themselves, and elucida- 
tory of the main work. There were carvings on the 
ends of the benches all along the aisle on both sides 
well worth examination, and some of them even of 
description ; but I shall not linger on these. A word 
only about the columns : they supported arches of 
different fashion on the opposite sides, but they were 
themselves similar in matter and construction, both 
remarkable. They were of coarse granite of the country, 
chiselled, but very far from smooth, not to say polished. 
Each pillar was a single stone, with chamfered sides. 

Walking softly through the ancient house, forgetting 
in the many thoughts that arose within me that I had a 
companion, I came at length into the tower, the base- 
ment of which was open, forming part of the body of 
the church. There hung many ropes through holes in 
a ceiling above, for bell-ringing was encouraged and 
indeed practised by my friend Shepherd. And as I 
regarded them, I thought within myself how delightful 
it would be if in these days, as in those of Samuel, the 
word of God was precious ; so that when it came to the 
minister, of his people — a fresh vision of his glory, a 
discovery of his meaning — he might make haste to the 
church and into the tower, lay hold of the rope that 


THE OLD CHURCH. 


* 7 * 


hung from the deepest-toned bell of all, and constrain 
it by the force of strong arms to utter its voice of call, 
“ Come hither, come hear, my people, for God hath 
spoken ;” and from the streets or the lanes would troop 
the eager folk; the plough be left in the furrow, the 
cream in the churn; and the crowding people bring 
faces into the church, all with one question upon them 
— “ What hath the Lord spoken V * But now it would 
be answer sufficient to such a call to say, “ But what 
will become of the butter?” or, “An hour’s ploughing 
will be lost.” And the clergy — how would they bring 
about such a time? They do not even believe that 
God has a word to his people through them. They 
think that his word is petrified for use in the Bible and 
Prayer-book ; that the wise men of old heard so muck 
of the word of God, and have so set it down, that there 
is no need for any more words of the Lord coming to 
the prophets of a land ; therefore they look down upon 
the prophesying — that is, the preaching of the word — 
make light of it, the best of them, say these prayers are 
everything, 01 all but everything: their hearts are not 
set upon hearing what God the Lord will speak, that they 
may speak it abroad to his people again. Therefore it 
is no wonder if the church bells are obedient only to the 
clock, are no longer subject to the spirit of the minister, 
and have nothing to do in telegraphing between heaven 
and earth. They make little of this part of their duty ; 
and no wonder, if what is to be spoken must remain 
such as they speak. They put the Church for God, and 
the prayers, which are the word of man to God, fo± the 


172 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


word of God to man. Cut when the prophets see no 
vision, how should they have any word to speak ? 

These thoughts were passing through my mind when 
my eye fell upon my guide. She was seated against the 
south wall of the tower, on a stool, I thought, or small 
table. While I was wandering about the church she 
had taken her stocking and wires out of her pocket, and 
was now knitting busily. How her needles did go! 
Her eyes never regarded them, however, but, fixed on 
the slabs that paved the tower at a yard or two from 
her feet, seemed to be gazing far out to sea, for they 
had an infinite objectless outlook. To try her, I took 
for the moment the position of an accuser. 

“ So you don’t mind working in church?” I said. 

When I spoke she instantly rose, her eyes turned as 
from the far sea- waves to my face, and light came out of 
them. With a smile she answered — 

“ The church knows me, sir.” 

“ But what has that to do with it ? ” 

" I don’t think she minds it. We are told to be 
diligent in business, you know, sir.” 

“ Yes, but it does not say in church and out of church. 
You could be diligent somewhere else, couldn’t you?” 

As soon as I said this, I began to fear she would think 
I meant it. But she only smiled and said, “ It won’t 
hurt she, sir ; and my good man, who does all he can 
to keep her tidy, is out at toes and heels, and if I 
don’t keep he warm he’ll be laid up, and then the church 
won’t be kep’ nice, sir, till he’s up again.” 

1 was tempted to go on. 


THE OLD CHURCH 


173 


** But you could have sat down outside — there are 
some nice gravestones near — and waited till I came 
out.” 

“But what’s the church for, sir? The sun ’s werryhot 
to-day, sir; and Mi Shepherd, he say, sir, that the church 
is like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. So, 
you see, if I was to sit out in the sun, instead of cornin' 
in here to the cool o’ the shadow, I wouldn’t be takin’ 
the church at her word. It does my heart good to sit 
in the old church, sir. There ’s a something do seem 
to come out o’ the old walls and settle down like the 
cool o’ the day upon my old heart that ’s nearly tired o’ 
crying, and would fain keep its eyes dry for the rest o’ 
the journey. My old man’s stockin’ won’t hurt the church, 
sir, and, bein’ a good deed, as I suppose it is, it ’s none 
the worse for the place. I think, if He was to come by 
wi’ the whip o’ small cords, I wouldn’t be afeard of his 
layin’ it upo’ my old back. Do you think he would, 
sir?” 

Thus driven to speak as I thought, I made haste to 
reply, more delighted with the result of my experiment 
than I cared to let her know. 

“ Indeed I do not I was only talking. It is but 
selfish, cheating, or ill-done work that the church’s Master 
drives away. All our work ought to be done in the 
shadow of the church.” * 

“ I thought you be only having a talk about it, sir,” 
she said, smiling her sweet old smile. “ Nobody knows 
what this old church is to me.” 

Now the old woman had a good husband, apparently: 


*74 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


the sorrows which had left their mark even upon hei 
smile, must have come from her family, I thought. 

“ You have had a family ? ” I said, interrogatively. 

“ I ’ve had thirteen,” she answered. “ Six bys and 
seven maidens.” 

“ Why, you are rich 1 ” I returned. “ And where are 
they all 1 ” 

“ Four maidens be lying in the churchyard, sir ; two 
be married, and one be down in the mill, there.” 

“ And your boys ? ” 

“ One of them be lyin’ beside his sisters — drownded 
afore my eyes, sir. Three o’ them be at sea, and two o’ 
them in it, sir.” 

At sea ! I thought. What a wide where / As vague 
to the imagination, almost, as in the other world . How a 
mother’s thoughts must go roaming about the waste, like 
birds that have lost their nest, to find them ! 

As this thought kept me silent for a few moments, 
she resumed. 

“ It be no wonder, be it, sir, that I like to creep into 
the church with my knitting ? Many’s the stormy night, 
when my husband couldn’t keep still, but would be out 
on the cliffs or on the breakwater, for no good in life, 
but just to hear the roar of the waves that he could only 
see by the white of them, with the balls o’ foam flying 
in his facenn the dark — many’s the such a night that I 
have left the house after he was gone, with this blessed 
key in my hand, and crept into the old church here, and 
sat down where I ’m sittin’ now — leastways where I was 
sittin’ when your reverence spoke to me — and hearkened 


THE OLD CHURCH. 


*75 


to the wind howling about the place. The church win- 
dows never rattle, sir — like the cottage windows, as I 
suppose you know, sir. Somehow, I feel safe in the 
church.” 

“ But if you had sons at sea,” said I, again wishing to 
draw her out, “ it would not be of much good to you to 
feel safe yourself, so long as they were in danger.” 

“ Oh ! yes, it be, sir. What's the good of feeling safe 
yourself but it let you know other people be safe toot 
It’s when you don’t feel safe yourself that you feel other 
people be n’t safe.” 

“ But,” I said — and such confidence I had from what 
she had already uttered, that I was sure the experiment 
was not a cruel one — “ some of your sons were drowned 
for all that you say about their safety.” 

“ Well, sir,” she answered, with a sigh, “ I trust they're 
none the less safe for that. It would be a strange thing 
for an old woman like me, well-nigh threescore and ten, 
to suppose that safety lay not in being drownded. Why, 
they might ha’ been cast on a desert island, and wasted 
to skin and bone, and got home again wi’ the loss of half 
the wits they set out with. Wouldn’t that ha’ been worse 
than being drownded right off? And that wouldn’t ha* 
been the worst, either. The church she seem to tell me 
all the time, that for all the roaring outside, there be 
really no danger after all. What matter if they go to 
the bottom 1 ? What is the bottom of the sea, sir? You 
bein’ a clergyman can tell that, sir. I shouldn’t ha* 
known it if I hadn’t had bys o’ my own at sea, sir. But 
you can tell, sir, though you ’ain’t got none there.* 


176 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


And though she was putting her parson to his cate- 
chism, the smile that returned on her face was as modest 
as if she had only been listening to his instruction. 1 
had not long to look for my answer. 

“ The hollow of his hand,” I said, and said no more. 

“ I thought you would know it, sir,” she returned, with 
a little glow of triumph in her tone. “ Well, then, that ’s 
just what the church tells me, when I come in here in 
the stormy nights. I bring my knitting then too, sir, for 
1 can knit in the dark as well as in the light almost; and 
when they come home, if they do come home, they ’re 
none the worse that I went to the old church to pray 
for them. There it goes roaring about them, poor 
dears, all out there ; and their old mother sitting still as 
a stone almost in the quiet old church, a caring for 
them. And then it do come across me, sir, that God be 
a-sitting in his own house at home, hearing all the noise 
and all the roaring in which his children are tossed 
about in the world, watching it all, letting it drown some 
o’ them and take them back to him, and keeping it 
from going too far with others of them that are not 
quite ready for that same. I have my thoughts, you see, 
sir, though I be an old woman, and not nice to look at.* 

I had come upon a genius. How nature laughs at 
our schools sometimes ! Education, so-called, is a fine 
thing, and might be a better thing ; but there is an educa- 
tion, that of life, which when seconded by a pure will to 
learn, leaves the schools behind, even as the horse of the 
desert would leave behind the slow pomposity of the 
pommon-fed goose. For life is God’s school and they 


THE OLD CHURCH. 


177 


that will listen to the Master there will learn at God’s 
speed. For one moment, I am ashamed to say, I was 
envious of Shepherd, and repined that, now old Rogers 
was gone, I had no such glorious old stained-glass-win- 
dow in my church to let in the eternal upon my light- 
thirsty soul. I must say for myself that the feeling 
lasted but for a moment, and that no sooner had the 
shadow of it passed, and the true light shined after it, 
than I was heartily ashamed of it. Why should not 
Shepherd have the old woman as well as II True, 
Shepherd was more of what would now be called a 
ritualist than I ; true, I thought my doctrine simpler and 
therefore better than his ; but was this any reason why I 
should have all the grand people to minister to in my 
parish ! Recovering myself, I found her last words still 
in my ears. 

“ You are very nice to look at,” I said. “ You must 
not find fault with the work of God, because you would 
like better to be young and pretty than to be as you 
now are. Time and time’s rents and furrows are all his 
making and his doing. God makes nothing ugly.” 

“ Are you quite sure of that, sir i ” 

I paused. Such a question from such a woman 
w must give us pause.” And, as I paused, the thought 
of certain animals flashed into my mind, and I could cot 
insist that God had never made anything ugly. 

“ No ; I am not sure of it,” I answered. For of all 
things my soul recoiled from, any professional pretence 
of knowing more than I did know seemed to me thq 

most repugnant to the spirit and mind of the Master* 

u 


.78 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


whose servants we are, or but the servants of mere 
priestly delusion and self-seeking. “ But if he does/’ I 
went on to say, “it must be that we may see what it *s 
like, and therefore not like it.” 

Then, unwilling all at once to plunge with her into 
such an abyss as the question opened, I turned the con- 
versation to an object on which my eyes had been for 
some time resting half-unconsciously. It was the sort of 
stool or bench on which my guide had been sitting. I 
now thought it was some kind of box or chest. It was 
curiously carved in old oak, very much like the ends of 
the benches and book-boards. 

“ What is that you are sitting on ?” I asked. “ A chest 
or what V’ 

“ It be there when we come to this place, and that be 
nigh fifty years agone, sir. But what it be, you ’ll be 
better able to tell than I be, sir.” 

“ Perhaps a chest for holding the communion-plate in 
old time,” I said. “ But how should it then come to be 
banished to the tower?” 

“ No, sir ; it can’t be that. It be some sort of ancient 
musical piano, I be thinking.” 

I stooped and saw that its lid was shaped like the 
cover of an organ. With some difficulty I opened it ; 
and there, to be sure, was a row of huge keys, fit for the 
fingers of a Cyclops. I pressed upon them, one after 
another, but no sound followed. They were stiff to the 
touch ; and once down, so they mostly remained until 
lifted again. I looked if there was any sign of a 
bellows, thinking it must have been some primitive kind 


THE OLD CHURCH. 


179 


of reed-instrument, like what we call a seraphine or har- 
monium now-a-days. But there was no hole through 
which there could have been any communication with 
or from a bellows, although there might have been a 
small one inside. There were, however, a dozen little 
round holes in the fixed part of the top, which might 
afford some clue to the mystery of its former life. I 
could not find any way of reaching the inside of it, so 
strongly was it put together; therefore I was left, I 
thought, to the efforts of my imagination alone for any 
hope of discovery with regard to the instrument, seeing 
further observation was impossible. But here I found that 
I was mistaken in two important conclusions, the latter of 
which depended on the former. The first of these was 
that it was an instrument : it was only one end of an in- 
strument ; therefore, secondly, there might be room for 
observation still. But I found this out by accident, 
which has had a share in most discoveries, and which, 
meaning a something that falls into our hands unlooked 
for, is so far an unobjectionable word even to the man 
who does not believe in chance. I had for the time 
given up the question as insoluble, and was gazing about 
the place, when, glancing up at the holes in the ceiling 
through which the bell-ropes went, I spied two or three 
thick wires hanging through the same ceiling close to the 
wall, and right over the box with the keys. The vague 
suspicion of a discovery dawned upon me. 

“ Have you got the key of the tower 1” I asked. 

“No, sir. But I’ll run home for it at once,” she an- 
swered. And rising, she went out in haste. 


i8o 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


M Run ! ” thought I, looking after her. “ It is a word 
of the will and the feeling, not of the body.” But I was 
mistaken. The dear old creature had no sooner got out- 
side of the churchyard, within which, I presume, she felt 
that she must be decorous, than she did run, and ran well 
too. I was on the point of starting after her at full 
speed, to prevent her from hurting herself, but reflecting 
that her own judgment ought to be as good as mine in 
such a case, I returned, and sitting down on her seat, 
awaited her reappearance, gazing at the ceiling. There I 
either saw, or imagined I saw, signs of openings cor- 
responding in number and position with those in the lid 
under me. In about three minutes the old woman 
returned, panting but not distressed, with a great 
crooked old key in her hand. Why are all the keys 
of a church so crooked 1 I did not ask her that ques- 
tion, though. What I said to her was — 

“ You shouldn’t run like that. I am in no 
hurry.” 

“ Be you not, sir 1 I thought, by the way you spoke, 
you be taken with a longing to get a-top o’ the tower, 
and see all about you like. For you see, sir, fond as I 
be of the old church, I du feel sometimes as if she’d 
smother me ; and then nothing will do, but I must get 
at the top of the old tower. And then, what with the 
sun, if there be any sun, and what with the fresh air 
which there al-ways be up there, sir — it du always be 
fresh up there, sir,” she repeated, “ I come back down 
again blessing the old church for its tower.” 

As she spoke she was toiling up the winding staircase' 


THE OLD CHURCH. 


Iftf 


after me, where there was just room enough for my 
shoulders to get through by turning themselves a little 
across the lie of the steps. They were very high, but 
she kept up with me bravely, bearing out her statement 
that she was no stranger to them. As I ascended, how- 
ever I was not thinking of her, but of what she had said. 
Strange to tell, the significance of the towers or spires of 
our churches had never been clear to me before. True, 
I was quite awake to their significance, at least to that 
of the spires, as fingers pointing ever upwards to 

“ regions mild of calm and serene air, 

Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot. 

Which men cajl Earth ; ” 

but I had not thought of their symbolism as lifting one 
up above the church itself into a region where no church 
is wanted, because the Lord God almighty and the 
Lamb are *khe temple of it. Happy church, indeed, if it 
destroys the need of itself by lifting men up into the 
eternal kingdom ! Would that I and all her servants 
lived pervaded with the sense of this her high end, her 
one high calling I We need the church towers to remind 
us that the mephitic airs in the church below are from 
the churchyard at its feet, which so many take for the 
church, worshipping over the graves and believing in 
death — or at least in the material substance over which 
alone death has power. Thus the church, even in her 
corruption, lifts us out of her corruption, sending us up 
her towers and her spires to admonish us that she too 
lives in the air of truth; that her form too must pass 


l8t 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


away, while the truth that is embodied in her lives be- 
yond forms and customs and prejudices, shining as the 
stars for ever and ever. He whom the church does not 
lift up above the church is not worthy to be a doorkeeper 
therein. 

Such thoughts passed through me, satisfied me, and 
left me peaceful, so that before I had reached the top, 1 
was thanking the Lord — not for his chuich-tower, but 
for his sexton’s wife. The old woman was a jewel. If 
hei husband was like her, which was too much to ex- 
pect — if he believed in her, it would be enough, quite — 
then indeed the little child, who answered on being 
questioned thereanent, as the Scotch would say, that the 
three orders of ministers in the church were the parson, 
clerk, and sexton, might not be so far wrong in respect 
of this individual case. So in the ascent, and the think- 
ing associated therewith, I forgot all about the special 
object for which I had requested the key of the tower, 
and led the way myself up to the summit, where stepping 
out of a little door, which being turned only heavenwards 
had no pretence for, or claim upon a curiously crooked 
key, but opened to the hand laid upon the latch, I 
thought of the words of the judicious Hooker, that 
“ the assembling of the church to learn ” was “ the 
receiving of angels descended from above and in such 
a whimsical turn as our thoughts will often take when 
we are not heeding them, I wondered for a moment 
whether that was why the upper door was left on the 
latch, forgetting that that could not be of much use, if 
the door in the basement was kept locked with the 


THE OLD CHURCH. 




crooked key. But the whole suggested something true 
about my own heart and that of my fellows, if not about 
the church. Revelation is not enough, the open top- 
door is not enough, if the door of the heart is not open 
likewise. 

As soon, however, as I stepped out upon the roof of 
the tower, I forgot again all that had thus passed through 
my mind, swift as a dream. For, filling the west, lay the 
ocean beneath, with a dark curtain of storm hanging in 
perpendicular lines over part of its horizon, and on the 
other side was the peaceful solid land, with its number- 
less shades of green, its heights and hollows, its farms 
and wooded vales — there was not much wood — its scat- 
tered villages and country dwellings, lighted and shadowed 
by the sun and the clouds. Beyond lay the blue heights 
of Dartmoor. And over all, bathing us as it passed, 
moved the wind, the life-bearing spirit of the whole, the 
servant of the sun. The old woman stood beside me, 
silently enjoying my enjoyment, with a still smile that 
seemed to say, in kindly triumph, “Was I not right about 
the tower and the wind that dwells among its pinnacles?” 
I drank deep of the universal flood, the outspread peace, 
the glory of the sun, and the haunting shadow of the 
sea that lay beyond like the visual image of the eternal 
silence — as it looks to us — that rounds our little earthly 
life. 

There were a good many trees in the churchyard, 
and as I looked down, the tops of them in their richest 
foliage hid all the graves directly below me, except a 
single flat stone looking up through an opening in the 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


IS 4 


/eaves, which seemed to have been just made for it to 
let it see the top of the tower. Upon the stone a child 
was seated playing with a few flowers she had gathered, 
not once looking up to the gilded vanes that rose from 
the four pinnacles at the corners of the tower. I turned 
to the eastern side, and looked over upon the church 
roof. It lay far below — looking very narrow and small, 
but long, with the four ridges of four steep roofs 
stretching away to the eastern end. It was in excel- 
lent repair, for the parish was almost all in one lord's 
possession, and he was proud of his church : between 
them he and Mr Shepherd had made it beautiful to be- 
hold, and strong to endure. 

When I turned to look again, the little child was gone. 
Some butterfly fancy had seized her, and she was away. 
A little lamb was in her place, nibbling at the grass that 
grew on the side of the next mound. And when 1 
looked seaward there was a sloop, like a white-winged 
sea-bird, rounding the end of a high projecting rock from 
the south, to bear up the little channel that led to the 
gates of the harbour canal. Out of the circling waters it 
had flown home, not from a long voyage, but hardly the 
less welcome therefore to those that waited and looked 
for her signal from the barrier rock. 

Re-entering by the angels’ door to descend the narrow 
cork-screw stair, so dark and cool, I caught a glimpse, 
one turn down, by the feeble light that came through its 
chinks after it was shut behind us, of a tiny maiden-hair 
fern growing out of the wall. I stopped and said to th« 
odd woman— 


THE OLD CHURCH. 


185 


“ I have a sick daughter at home, or I wouldn’t rob 
your tower of this lovely little thing.” 

“ W ell, sir, what eyes you have ! I never saw the thing 
before. Do take it home to miss. It ’ll do her good to 
see it. I be main sorry to hear you ’ve got a sick maiden. 
She Len’t a bedlar, be she, sir ? ” 

I was busy with my knife getting out all the roots I 
could without hurting them, and before I had succeeded 
1 had remembered Turner’s using the word. 

“ Not quite that,” I answered, “ but she can’t even 
sit up, and must be carried everywhere.” 

“ Poor dear ! Every one has their troubles, sir. The 
sea ’s been mine.” 

She continued talking and asking kind questions 
about Connie as we went down the stair. Not till she 
opened a little door I had passed without observing it as 
we came up, was I reminded of my first object in as- 
cending the tower. For this door revealed a number of 
bells hanging in silent power in the brown twilight of the 
place. I entered carefully, for there were only some 
planks laid upon the joists to keep one’s feet from going 
through the ceiling. In a few moments I had satisfied 
myself that my conjecture about the keys below was 
correct The small iron rods I had seen from beneath 
hung down from this place. There were more of them 
hanging shorter above, and there was yet enough of a 
further mechanism remaining to prove that those keys, 
Dy means of the looped and cranked rods, had been in 
connexion with hammers, one of them indeed remaining 
also, which struck the hells, so that a tune could be played 


1S6 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


upon them as upon any other keyed instrument. This 
was the first contrivance of the kind I had ever seen, 
though I have heard of it in other churches since. 

“ If I could find a clever blacksmith in the neighbour- 
hood, now,” I said to myself, “ I would get this all re- 
paired, so that it should not interfere with the bell-ring- 
ing when the ringers were to be had, and yet Shepherd 
could play a psalm tune to his parish at large when he 
pleased.” For Shepherd was a very fair musician, and 
gave a good deal of time to the organ. “ It ’s a grand 
notion, to think of him sitting here in the gloom, with that 
great musical instrument towering above him, whence he 
sends forth the voice of gladness, almost of song to his 
people, while they are mowing the grass, binding the 
sheaves, or gazing abroad over the stormy ocean in doubt, 
anxiety, and fear. ‘ There ’s the parson at his bells,’ they 
would say, and stop and listen ; and some phrase might 
sink into their hearts, waking some memory, or giving 
birth to some hope or faint aspiration. I will see what 
can be done.” Having come to this conclusion, I left 
the abode of the bells, descended to the church, bade my 
conductress good morning, saying I would visit her soon 
in her own house, and bore home to my chiid the spoil 
which, without kirk-rapine, I had torn from the wall of 
the sanctuary. By this time the stormy veil had lifted 
from the horizon, and the sun was shining in full power 
without one darkening cloud. 

Ere I left the churchyard I would have a glance at 
the stone which ever seemed to lie gazing up at the 
tower. I soon found it. because it was the only one 


THE OLD CHURCH. 


187 


in that quarter from which I could see the top of the 
tower. It recorded the life and death of an aged pair 
who had been married fifty years, concluding with the 
couplet — 

* A long time this may seem to be, 

But it did not seem long to we.” 

The whole story of a human life lay in that last verse. 
True, it was not good grammar, but they had got through 
fifty years of wedded life probably without any knowledge 
of grammar to harmonize or to shorten them, and I 
daresay, had they been acquainted with the lesson he 
had put into their dumb mouths, they would have been 
aware of no ground of quarrel with t.he poetic stone- 
cutter, who most likely had thrown the verses in 
when he made his claim for the stone and the cutting. 
Having learned this one by heart, I went about looking 
for anything more in the shape of sepulchral flora that 
might interest or amuse my crippled darling ; nor had 
I searched long before I found one, the sole but trium- 
phant recommendation of which was the thorough 
“ puzzle - headedness ” of its construction. 1 quite 
reckoned on seeing Connie trying to make it out 
looking as bewildered over its excellent grammar as the 
poet of the other ought to have looked over his rhymes, 
ere he gave in to the use of the nominative after % 
preposition. 

“ If you could view the heavenly shore, 

Where heart’s content you hope to find, 

Vou would not murmur were you gone before^ 

But grieve that you are left behind.” 


CHAPTER XVI. 


Connie’s watch-tower. 

I walked home, the rush of the rising tide 
was in my ears. To my fancy, the ocean 
awaking from a swoon in which its life had 
ebbed to its heart, was sending that life 
abroad to its extremities, and waves breaking in white 
were the beats of its reviving pulse, the flashes of return- 
ing light. But so gentle was its motion, and so lovely 
its hue, that I could not help contrasting it with its reflex 
in the mind of her who took refuge from the tumult of 
its noises in the hollow of the old church. To her, let 
it look as blue as the sky, as peaceful and as moveless, 
it was a wild, reckless, false, devouring creature, a prey 
to its own moods, and to that of the blind winds 
which, careless of consequences, urged it to raving fury. 
Only, while the sea took this form to her imagination, 
she believed in that which held the sea. and knew that, 



Connie’s watch-tower. 


189 


when it pleased God to part his confining fingers, there 
would be no more sea. 

When I reached home, I went straight to Connie’s 
room. Now, the house was one of a class to every 
individual of which, whatever be its style or shape, I 
instantly become attached almost as if it possessed a 
measure of the life which it has sheltered. This class of 
human dwellings consists of the houses that have grown . 
They have not been built after a straight-up-and-down 
model of uninteresting convenience or money-loving 
pinchedness. They must have had some plan, good, 
bad, or indifferent, as the case may be, at first, I sup- 
pose y but that plan they have left far behind, having 
grown with the necessities or ambitions of succeeding 
possessors, until the fact that they have a history is as 
plainly written on their aspect as on that of any son or 
daughter of Adam. These are the houses which the 
fairies used to haunt, and if there is any truth in ghost- 
stories, the houses which ghosts will yet haunt ; and 
hence perhaps the sense of soothing comfort which per- 
vades us when we cross their thresholds. You do not 
know, the moment you have cast a glance about the halt, 
where the dining-room, drawing-room, and best bed- 
room are. You have got it all to find out, just as the 
character of a man ; and thus had I to find out this house 
of my friend Shepherd. It had formerly been a kind of 
manor-house, though altogether unlike any other manor- 
house I ever saw ; for after exercising all my construc- 
tive ingenuity reversed in pulling it to pieces in my mind, 
I came to the conclusion that the germ-cell of it was s 


* 9 ° 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


cottage of the simplest sort, which had grown by the 
addition of other cells, till it had reached the develop- 
ment in which we found it. 

I have said that the dining-room was almost on the 
level of the shore. Certainly some of the flat stones 
that coped the low wall in front of it were thrown into the 
garden before the next winter by the waves. But Connie’s 
room looked out on a little flower garden almost on the 
downs, only sheltered a little by the rise of a short grassy 
slope above it. This, however, left the prospect from 
her window down the bay and out to sea, almost open. 
To reach this room I had now to go up but one simple cot- 
tage stair ; for the door of the house entered on the first 
floor — that is, as regards the building, midway between 
heaven and earth. It had a large bay window ; and in 
this window Connie was lying on her couch, with the 
lower sash wide open, through which the breeze entered, 
smelling of sea-weed tempered with sweet grasses and 
the wall-flowers and stocks that were in the little plot 
under it. I thought I could see an improvement in her 
already. Certainly she looked very happy. 

“ Oh, papa ! ” she said, “ isn’t it delightful ? 

“ What is, my dear 1 ” 

u Oh, everything. The wind, and the sky, and the 
sea, and the smell of the flowers. Do look at that sea- 
bird. His wings are like the barb of a terrible arrow. 
How he goes undulating, neck and body, up and down 
as he flies. I never felt before that a bird moves hi* 
wings. It always looked as if the wings flew with the 
bird. But I see the effort in him.* 


CONNIE’S WATCH-TOWER. 


191 


u An easy effort, though, I should certainly think.” 

“ No doubt. But I see that he chooses and means to 
fly, and so does it. It makes one almost reconciled to 
the idea of wings. Do angels really have wings, papal” 
“ It is generally so represented, I think, in the Bible. 
But whether it is meant as a natural fact about them, is 
more than I take upon me to decide. For one thing, I 
should have to examine whether in simple narrative 
they are ever represented with them, as, I think, in 
records of visions they are never represented without 
them. But wings are very beautiful things, and I do not 
exactly see why you should need reconciling to them.” 
Connie gave a little shrug of her shoulders. 

“ I don’t like the notion of them growing out at my 
shoulder-blades. And how ever would you get on youi 
clothes ? If you put them over your wings, they would 
be of no use, and would, besides, make you hump- 
backed ; and if you did not, everything would have to 
be buttoned round the roots of them. You could not 
do it yourself, and even on Wynnie I don’t think I could 
bear to touch the things — I don’t mean the feathers, but 
the skinny, folding-up bits of them.” 

I laughed at her fastidious fancy. 

“You want to fly, I suppose?” I said. 

“ Oh, yes ; I should like that.” 

“ And you don’t want to have wings V* 

“ Well, I shouldn’t mind the wings exactly ; but how 
ever would one be able to keep them nice?” 

“ There you go ; starting from one thing to another, 
like a real bud already. When you can’t answer one 


192 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


thing, off to another, and, from your new perch on the 
hawthorn, talk as if you were still on the topmost branch 
of the lilac!” 

“ Oh yes, papa ! That’s what I ’ve heard you say to 
mamma twenty times.” 

“ And did I ever say to your mamma anything but 
the truth? or to you either, you puss?” 

I had not yet discovered that when I used this epithet 
to my Connie, she always thought she had gone too far. 
She looked troubled. I hastened to relieve her. 

“ When women have wings,” I said, “ their logic will 
be good.” 

“How do you make that out, papa?” she asked, a 
little re-assured. 

“ Because then every shadow of feeling that turns 
your speech aside from the straight course will be re- 
cognized in that speech; the whole utterance will be 
instinct not only with the meaning of what you are 
thinking, but with the reflex of the forces in you that 
make the utterance take this or that shape ; just as to a 
perfect palate, the source and course of a stream would 
be revealed in every draught of its water.” 

“ I have just a glimmering of your meaning, papa. 
Would you like to have wings ?” 

“ I should like to fly like a bird, to swim like a fish, 
to gallop like a horse, to creep like a serpent; but I 
suspect the good of ail these is to be got without doing 
any of them.” 

“ I know what you mean now but I can’t put it in 
words.” 


Connie’s watch-tower. 


*93 


“I mean by a perfect sympathy with the creatures 
that do these things : what it may please God to give to 
ourselves, we can quite comfortably leave to him. A 
higher stratum of the same kind is the need we feel of 
knowing our fellow-creatures through and through, of 
walking into and out of their worlds as if we were, be- 
cause we are, perfectly at home in them. But I am 
talking what the people who do not understand such 
things lump all together as mysticism, which is their 
name for a kind of spiritual ashpit, whither they consign 
dust and stones, never asking whether they may not be 
gold-dust and rubies, ail ,in a heap. You had better 
begin to think about getting out, Connie.” 

“ Think about it, papa ! I have been thinking about 
it ever since daylight.” 

“ I will go and see what your mother is doing then, 
and if she is ready to go out with us.” 

In a few moments all was arranged. Without killing 
more than a snail or two, which we could not take time 
to beware of, Walter and I — finding that the window 
did not open down to the ground in French fashion, for 
which there were two good reasons, one the fierceness 
of the winds in winter, the other, the fact that the means 
of egress were elsewise provided — lifted the sofa, Connie 
and all, out over the window-sill, and then there was 
only a little door in the garden-wall to get her through 
before we found ourselves upon the down I think the 
ascent of this hill was the first experience I had — a little 
to my humiliation, nothing to my sorrow — that I was 
descending another hill. I had to set down the precious 


*94 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


burden rather oftener before we reached the brow of 
the cliffs than would have been necessary ten years be- 
fore. But this was all right, and the newly-discovered 
weakness then was strength to the power which carries 
me about on my two legs now. It is all right still. I 
shall be stronger by and by. 

We carried her high enough for her to see the brilliant 
waters lying many feet below her, with the sea-birds of 
which we had talked winging their undulating way be- 
tween heaven and ocean. It is when first you have a 
chance of looking a bird in the face on the wing that you 
know what the marvel of flight is. There it hangs or 
rests, which you please, borne up, as far as eye or any 
of the senses can witness, by its own will alone. This 
Connie, quicker than I in her observation of nature, had 
already observed. Seated on the warm grass by her side, 
while neither talked, but both regarded the blue spaces, 
I saw one of those barb-winged birds rest over my head, 
regarding me from above, as if doubtful whether I did 
not afford some claim to his theory of treasure-trove. I 
knew at once that what Connie had been saying to me 
just before was true. 

She lay silent a long time. I too was silent At 
length I spoke. 

“ Are you longing to be running about amongst the 
rocks, my Connie 1 ” 

“ No, papa ; not a bit. I don’t know how it is, but I 
don’t think I ever wished much for anything I knew I 
could not have. I am enjoying everything more than 1 
can tell you. I wish Wynnie were as happy as I am." 


CONNIE’S WATCH-TOWER. 


«9! 


“ Why ? Do you think she ’s not happy, my dear ?” 

“ That doesn’t want any thinking, papa. You can see 
that * 

"I am afraid you’re right, Connie. What do you 
think is the cause of it ?** 

“ I think it is because she can ; t wait. She *s always 
going out to meet things ; and then when they ’re not 
there waiting for her, she thinks they ’re nowhere. But 
I always think her way is finer than mine. If everybody 
were like me, there wouldn’t be much done in the world, 
would there, papa?” 

“ At all events, my dear, your way is wise for you, and 
I am glad you do not judge your sister.” 

“ Judge Wynnie, papa ! That would be cool impu- 
dence. She ’s worth ten of me. Don’t you chink, papa,” 
she added, after a pause, “ that if Mary had said the 
smallest word against Martha, as Martha did against 
Mary, Jesus would have had a word to say on Martha’s 
side next?” 

“ Indeed I do, my dear. And I think that Mary did 
not sit very long without asking Jesus if she mightn’t go 
and help her sister. There is but one thing needful — 
that is, the will of God ; and when people love that above 
everything, they soon come to see that to everything 
else there are two sides, and that only the will of God 
gives fair play, as we call it, to both of them.” 

Another silence followed. Then Connie spoke. 

u Is it not strange, papa, that the only thing here that 
makes me want to get up to look, is nothing of all the 
,«Tand things round about me ? I am just lying like the 


196 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


convex mirror in the school-room at home, letting them 
all paint themselves in me.” 

“ What is it then that makes you wish to get »;p and 
go and see ?” I asked with real curiosity. 

“ Do you see down there — away across the bay — 
amongst the rocks at the other side, a man sitting 
sketching?” 

I looked for sometime before I could discover him. 

“ Your sight is good, Connie : I see the man, but I 
could not tell what he was doing.” 

“ Don’t you see him lifting his head every now and 
then for a moment, and then keeping it down for a longer 
while?” 

“ I cannot distinguish that. But then I am short- 
sighted rather, you know.” 

“I wonder how you see so many little things that 
nobody else seems to notice, then, papa.” 

“ That is because I have trained myself to observe. 
The degree of power in the sight is of less consequence 
than the habit of seeing. But you have not yet told me 
what it is that makes you desirous of getting up.” 

“ I want to look over his shoulder, and see what he 
is doing. Is it not strange that in the midst of all this 
plenty of beautifulness, I should want to rise to look at 
a few lines and scratches, or smears of colour, upon a bit 
of paper?” 

‘‘No, my dear; I don’t think it is strange. There a 
new element of interest is introduced — the human. No 
doubt there is deep humanity in all this around us. 
No doubt all the world, in all its moods, is human, as 


CONNIE’S WATCH-TOWER. 


197 


those for whose abode and instruction it was made. No 
doubt, it would be void of both beauty and significance 
to our eyes, were it not that it is one crowd of picture? 
of the human mind, blended in one living fluctuating 
whole. But these meanings are there in solution as it 
were. The individual is a centre of crystallization to 
this solution. Around him meanings gather, are sepa- 
rated from other meanings ; and if he be an artist, by 
which I mean true painter, true poet, or true musician, 
as the case may be, he so isolates and re-presents them, 
that we see them — not what nature shows to us, but 
what nature has shown to him, determined by his nature 
and choice. With it is mingled therefore so much of 
his own individuality, manifested both in this choice 
and certain modifications determined by his way of 
working, that you have not only a representation of 
an aspect of nature, as far as that may be with limited 
powers and materials, but a revelation of the man’s own 
mind and nature. Consequently there is a human in- 
terest in every true attempt to reproduce nature, an 
interest of individuality which does not belong to nature 
herself, who is for all and every man. You have just 
been saying that you were lying there like a convex 
mirror reflecting all nature around you. Every man is 
such a convex mirror ; and his drawing, if he can make 
one, is an attempt to show what is in this little mirror of 
his, kindled there by the grand world outside. And the 
human mirrors being all differently formed, vary infinitely 
in what they would thus represent of the same scene. 
I have been greatly interested in looking alternately 


198 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


over the shoulders of two artists, both sketching in 
colour the same, absolutely the same scene, both trying 
to represent it with all the truth in their power. How 
different, notwithstanding, the two representations came 
out!” 

“ I think I understand you, papa. But look a little 
farther off. Don’t you see over the top of another rock 
a lady’s bonnet? I do believe that’s Wynnie. I know 
she took her box of water-colours out with her this morn 
ing, just before you came home. Dora went with her.” 

“Can’t you tell by her ribbons, Connie? You seem 
sharp-sighted enough to see her face if she would show 
it. I don’t even see the bonnet. If I were like some 
people I know, I should feel justified in denying its 
presence, attributing the whole to your fancy, and re 
fusing anything to superiority of vision.” 

“ That wouldn’t be like you, papa.” 

“ I hope not ; for I have no fancy for being shut up 
in my own blindness, when other people offer me their 
eyes to eke out the defects of my own with. But here 
comes mamma at last.” 

Connie’s face brightened as if she had not seen her 
mother for a fortnight. My Ethelwyn always brought 
the home-gladness that her name signified with her. 
She was a centre of radiating peace. 

“ Mamma, don’t you think that’s Wynnie’s bonnet 
over that black rock there, just beyond where you see 
that man drawing ? ” 

“You absurd child! How should I know Wynnie s 
bonnet at this distance ? * 


Connie’s watch-tower. 


199 


u Can’t you see the little white feather you gave her 
out of your wardrobe jus* before we left? She put it in 
this morning before she went out.” 

“ I think I do see something white. But I want you 
to look out there, towards what they call the Chapel 
Rock, at the other end of that long mound they call the 
breakwater. You will soon see a boat appear full of 
the coastguard. I saw them going on board just as I 
left the house to come up to you. Their officer came 
down with his sword, ^nd each of the men had a cufe- 
las. I wonder what it can mean.” 

We looked. But before the boat made its appearance, 
Connie cried out — 

“ Look there ! What a big boat that is rowing for the 
land, away northwards there ! ” 

I turned my eyes in the direction she indicated, and 
saw a long boat with some half-dozen oars, full of men, 
rowing hard, apparently for some spot on the shore at 
a considerable distance to the north of our bay. 

“Ah!” I said, “that boat has something to do with 
the coastguard and their cutlases. You ’ll see that, as 
soon as they get out of the bay, they will row in the 
same direction.” 

So it was. Our boat appeared presently from under 
the concealment of the heights on which we were, and 
made at full speed after the other boat. 

“ Surely they can't be smugglers,” I said. “ I thought 
all that was over and done with.” 

In the course of another twenty minutes, during which 
we watched their progress, both boats had disappeared 


aoo 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


behind the headland to the northward. Then, thinking 
Connie had had nearly enough of the sea air for her first 
experience of its influences, I went and fetched Walter, 
and we carried her back as we had brought her. She 
had not been in the shadow of her own room for fi\e 
minutes before she was fast asleep. 

It was now nearly time for our early dinner. We 
always dined early when we could, that we might eat 
along with our children. We were both convinced that 
the only way to make them behave like ladies and gentle- 
men was to have them always with us at meals. We 
had seen very unpleasant results in the children of those 
who allowed them to dine with no other supervision 
than the nursery afforded : they were a constant anxiety 
and occasional horror to those whom they visited — 
snatching like monkeys and devouring like jackals, as 
selfishly as if they were mere animals. 

“ Oh ! we ’ve seen such a nice gentleman ! * said 
Dora, becoming lively under the influence of her 
soup. 

u Have you, Dora ? Where 1 p 
“ Sitting on the rocks, taking a portrait of the sea l * 

“ What makes you say he was a nice gentleman 1 * 

“ He had such beautiful boots ! ” answered Dora, at 
irhich there was a great laugh about the table. 

“ Oh ! we must run and tell Connie that,’ 1 said 
Harry. “ It will make her laugh.” 

u What will you tell Connie, then, Harry?* 

“ Oh, what was it, Charlie ? I Ve forgotten.* 

Another laugh followed at Harry’s expense now, and 


Connie’s watch-tower. 


201 


we were all very merry, when Dora, who sat opposite to 
the window, called out clapping her hands — 

“There’s Niceboots again! There’s Niceboots 
again ! ” 

The same moment the head of a young man appeared 
over the wall that separated the garden from the little 
beach that lay by the entrance of the canal. I saw at 
once that he must be more than ordinarily tall to show 
his face, for he was not close to the wall. It was a dark 
countenance, with a long beard, which few at that time 
wore, though now it is getting not uncommon, even in 
my own profession — a noble, handsome face, a little 
sad, with downbent eyes, which, released from their more 
immediate duty towards nature, had now bent them- 
selves upon the earth. 

u Counting the aewy pebbles, fixed in thought.’* 

“ I suppose he ’s contemplating his boots,” said 
Wynnie, with apparent maliciousness. 

“That’s too bad of you, Wynnie,” I said, and the 
child blushed. 

“ I didn ’t mean anything, papa. It was only follow- 
ing up Dora’s wise discrimination,” said Wynnie. 

“ He is a fine-looking fellow,” said I, “ and ought, with 
that face and head, to be able to paint good pictures.” 

“ I should like to see what he has done,” said Wynnie; 
“ for, by the way we were sitting, I should think we were 
attempting the same thing.” 

“And what was that then, Wynnie ?” I asked. 

“ A rock,” she answered, “ that you could not see from 


202 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


where you were sitting. I saw you on the top of the 
cliff.” 

“ Connie said it was you, by your bonnet She, too, 
was wishing she could look over the shoulder of the 
artist at work beside you.” 

“ Not beside me. There were yards and yards of solid 
rock between us.” 

u Space, you see, in removing things from the beholder, 
seems always to bring them nearer to each other, and 
the most differing things are classed under one name by 
the man who knows nothing about them. But what sort 
of a rock was it you were trying to draw 1 ” 

M A strange-looking, conical rock, that stands alone in 
front of one of the ridges that project from the shore 
into the water. Three sea-birds, with long white 
wings, were flying about it, and the little waves of the 
rising tide were beating themselves against it and break- 
ing in white plashes. So the rock stood between the 
blue and white below and the blue and white above ; for, 
though there were no clouds, the birds gave the touches 
of white to the upper sea.” 

“Now, Dora,” I said, “ I don’t know if you are old 
enough to understand me ; but sometimes little people 
are long in understanding just because the older people 
think they can’t, and don’t try them. Do you see, Dora, 
why 1 want you to learn to draw 1 Look how Wynnie 
sees things. That is, in a great measure, because 
she draws things, and has, by that, learned to watch 
in order to find out. It is a great thing to have your 
eyes open.” 


Connie’s watch-tower. 


203 


Dora’s eyes were large, and she opened them to their 
full width, as if she would take in the universe at their 
little doors. Whether that indicated that she did not in 
the least understand what I had been saying, or that she 
was in sympathy with it, I cannot tell. 

“ Now let us go up to Connie, and tell her about the 
rock and everything else you have seen since you went 
out. We are all her messengers, sent out to discover 
things, and bring back news of them.” 

After a little talk with Connie, I retired to the study, 
which was on the same floor as her room, completing, 
indeed, the whole of that part of the house, which, seen 
from without, looked like a separate building ; for it had 
a roof of its own, and stood higher up the rock than the 
rest of the dwelling. Here I began to glance over his 
books. To have the run of another man’s library, especially 
if it has all been gathered by himself, is like having a pass- 
key into the chambers of his thought. Only, one must 
be wary, when he opens them, what marks on the books 
he takes for those of the present owner. A mistake here 
would breed considerable confusion and falsehood in 
any judgment formed from the library. I found, how- 
ever, one thing plain enough, that Shepherd had kept 
up that love for an older English literature which had 
been one of the cords to draw us towards each other 
when we were students together. There had been one 
point on which we especially agreed — that a true know- 
ledge of the present, in literature, as in everything else, 
could only be founded upon a knowledge of what had 
gone before ; therefore, that any judgment, in regard to 


204 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


the literature of the present day, was of no value, which 
was not guided and influenced by a real acquaintance 
with the best of what had gone before, being liable to be 
dazzled and misled by novelty of form and other quali- 
ties which, whatever might be the real worth of the sub- 
stance, were, in themselves, purely ephemeral. I had 
taken down a last century edition of the poems of the 
brothers Fletcher, and, having begun to read a lovely 
passage in “ Christ’s Victory and Triumph,” had gone 
into what I can only call an intellectual rage at the 
impudence of the editor, who had altered innumerable 
Words and phrases to suit the degenerate taste of his own 
time, — when a knock came to the door, and Charlie 
entered, breathless with eagerness. 

“ There ’s the boat with the men with the swords in it, 
and another boat behind them, twice as big.” 

I hurried out upon the road, and there, close under 
our windows, were the two boats we had seen in the 
morning, landing their crews on the little beach. The 
second boat was full of weather-beaten men, in all kinds 
of attire, some in blue jerseys, some in red shirts, some 
in ragged coats. One man, who looked their superior, 
was dressed in blue from head to foot. 

“ What ’s the matter 1” I asked the officer of the coast- 
guard, a sedate, thoughtful-looking man. 

“Vessel foundered, sir,” he answered. “Sprung a 
leak on Sunday morning. She was laden with iron, and 
in a heavy ground swell it shifted and knocked a hole in 
her. The poor fellows are worn out with the pump and 
lowing, upon little or nothing to eat* 9 


Connie’s watch-tower. 


aoS 


They were trooping past us by this time, looking rather 
dismal, though not by any means abject. 

“ What are you going to do with them now ? " 

" They 'll be taken in by the people. We ’ll get up a 
little subscription for them, but they all belong to the 
society the sailors have for sending the shipwrecked to 
their homes, or where they want to go/’ 

“ Well, here ’s something to help,” I said. 

“ Thank you, sir. They *11 be very glad of it.* 

“ And if there ’s anything wanted that I can do for 
them, you must let me know.” 

“ I will, sir. But I don’t think there will be any 
occasion to trouble you. You are our new clergyman, 
I believe.” 

“ Not exactly that. Only for a little while, till my 
friend Mr Shepherd is able to come back to you.” 

“We don’t want to lose Mr Shepherd, sir. He’s 
what they call high in these parts, but he ’s a great 
favourite with all the poor people, because you see he 
understands them as if he was of the same flesh and 
blood with themselves — as, for that matter, 1 suppose 
we all are.” 

“ If we weren’t there would be nothing to say at all. 
Will any of these men be at church to-morrow, do you 
suppose 1 I am afraid sailors are not much in the way 
of going to church ? ” 

“ I am afraid not. You see they are all anxious t<? 
get home. Most likely they ’ll be all travelling to-mor- 
row. It’s a pity. It would be a good chance for saying 
something to them that the) might think of again. But 


*o6 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


I often think that, perhaps — it's only my own fancy, 
and I don’t set it up for anything — that sailors won’t be 
judged exactly like other people. They ’re so knocked 
about, you see, sir.” 

“Of course not. Nobody will be judged like any 
other body. To his own Master, who knows all about 
him, every man stands or falls. Depend upon it, God 
likes fair-play, to use a homely phrase, far better than 
any sailor of them all. But that ’s not exactly the ques- 
tion. It seems to me the question is this : shall we, who 
know what a blessed thing life is because we know what 
God is like, who can trust in him with all our hearts 
because he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the 
friend of sinners, shall we not try all we can to let them, 
too, know the blessedness of trusting in their Father ir. 
heaven? If we could only get them to say the Lord’s 
prayer, meaning it, think what that would be ! Look here ! 
This can’t be called bribery, for they are in want of it, 
and it will show them I am friendly. Here ’s another sove- 
reign. Give them my compliments, and say that if any 
of them happen to be in Kilkhaven to morrow, I shall 
be quite pleased to welcome them to church. Tell them 
I will give them of my best there if they will come. 
Make the invitation merrily, you know. No long faces 
and solemn speech. I will give them the solemn speech 
when they come to church. But even there I hope God 
will keep the long face far from me. That is fittest for 
fear and suffering. And the house of God is the casket 
that holds the antidote against all fear and most suffer- 
ing. But I am preaching my sermon on Saturday in- 


CONNIE’S WATCH-TOWER. 


20J 


stead of Sunday,' and keeping you from your ministration 
to the poor fellows. Good-bye.” 

“ I will give them your message as near as I can,” he 
said, and we shook hands and parted. 

This was the first experience we had of the might and 
battle of the ocean. To our eyes it lay quiet as a baby 
asleep. On that Sunday morning there had been no 
commotion here. Yet now at last, on the Saturday 
morning, home come the conquered and spoiled of the 
sea. As if with a mock she takes all they have, and 
flings them on shore again, with her weeds, and her 
shells, and her sand. Before the winter was over we 
had learned — how much more of that awful power that 
surrounds the habitable earth ! By slow degrees the 
sense of its might grew upon us, first by the vision of its 
many aspects and moods, and then by the more awful 
things that followed ; for there are few coasts upon which 
the sea rages so wildly as upon this, the whole force of 
the Atlantic breaking upon it. Even when there is no 
storm within perhaps hundreds of miles, when all is still 
as a church on land, the storm which raves somewhere 
out upon the vast waste, will drive the waves in upon 
the shore with such fury that not even a lifeboat could 
make its way through the yawning hollows, and theil 
fierce, shattered, and tumbling crests. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


MY FIRST SERMON IN THE SEABOARD PARISH. 

the hope that some of the shipwrecked 
mariners might be present in the church the 
next day, I proceeded to consider my morn- 
ing’s sermon for the occasion. There was no 
difficulty in taking care at the same time that it should 
be suitable to the congregation, whether those sailors 
were there or not. I turned over in my mind several 
subjects. I thought, for instance of showing them how 
this ocean that lay watchful and ready all about our 
island, all about the earth, was but a visible type or 
symbol of two other oceans, one very still, the other very 
awful and fierce ; in fact, that three oceans surrounded 
us : one of the known world, one of the unseen world, 
that is, of death ; one of the spirit — the devouring ocean 
of evil — and might I not have added yet another, en- 
compassing and silencing all the rest — that of truth ! 
The visible ocean seemed to make war upon the land, 



MY FIRST SERMON IN THE SEABOARD PARISH. 209 


and the dwellers thereon. Restrained by the will of 
God, and by him made subject more and more to the 
advancing knowledge of those who were created to rule 
over it, it was yet like a half-tamed beast, ever ready to 
break loose and devour its masters. Of course this 
would have been but one aspect or appearance of it — for 
it was in truth all service ; but this was the aspect I knew 
it must bear to those, seafaring themselves or not, to 
whom I had to speak. Then I thought I might show, 
that its power, like that of all things that man is ready to 
fear, had one barrier over which no commotion, no might 
of driving wind, could carry it, beyond which its loudest 
waves were dumb — the barrier of death. Hitherto and 
no further could its power reach. It could kill the body. 
It could dash in pieces the last little cock-boat to which 
the man clung, but thus it swept the man beyond its 
own region into the second sea of stillness, which we call 
death, out upon which the thoughts of those that are left 
behind can follow him only in great longings, vague con- 
jectures, and mighty faith. Then I thought I could 
show them how, raving in fear, or lying still in calm 
deceit, there lay about the life of a man a far more fear- 
ful ocean than that which threatened his body; for this 
would cast, could it but get hold of him, both body and 
soul into hell — the sea of evil, of vice, of sin, of wrong- 
doing — they might call it by what name they pleased. 
This made war against the very essence of life, against 
God who is the truth, against love, against fairness, 
against fatherhood, motherhood, sisterhood, brotherhood, 

manhood, womanhood, against tenderness and grace apd 

o 


210 


THE SEAI5 0ARD PARISH. 


beauty, gathering into one pulp of festering death all that 
is noble, lovely, worshipful in the human nature made 
so divine that the one fearless man, the Lord Jesus 
Christ, shared it with us. This, I thought I might make 
them understand, was the only terrible sea, the only 
hopeless ocean from whose awful shore we must shrink 
and flee, the end of every voyage upon whose bosom 
was the bottom of its filthy waters, beyond the reach of 
all that is thought or spoken in the light, beyond life 
itself, but for the hand that reaches down from the upper 
ocean of truth, the hand of the Redeemer of men. I 
thought, I say, for a while, that I could make this, not 
definite, but very real to them. But I did not feel quite 
confident about it. Might they not in the symbolism 
forget the thing symbolized ? And would not the symbol 
itself be ready to fade quite from their memory, or to re- 
turn only in the vaguest shadow ? And with the thought 
I perceived a far mere excellent way. For the power of 
the truth lies of course in its revelation to the mind, and 
while for this there are a thousand means, none are so 
mighty as its embodiment in human beings and human 
life. There it is itself alive and active. And amongst 
these., what embodiment comes near to that in him who 
was perfect man in virtue of being at the root of the 
secret of humanity, in virtue of being the eternal Son of 
God ? We are his sons in time : he is his Son in 
eternity, of whose sea time is but the broken sparkle. 
Therefore, I would talk to them about — but I will treat 
my reader now as if he were not my reader, but one of 
my congregation on that bright Sunday, my first in the 


KY FIRST SERMON IN THE SEABOARD PARISH. 211 


Seaboard Parish, with the sea outside the church, flashing 
in the sunlight. 

While I stood at the lectern, which was in front of 
the altar-screen, I could see little of my congregation, 
partly from my being on a level with them, partly from 
the necessity for keeping my eyes and thoughts upon 
that which I read. When, however, I rose from prayer 
in the pulpit, then I felt, as usual with me, that I was 
personally present for personal influence with my people, 
and then I saw, to my great pleasure, that one long 
bench nearly in the middle of the church was full of such 
sunburnt men as could not be mistaken for any but 
mariners, even if their torn and worn garments had not 
revealed that they must be the very men about whom 
we had been so imv.h interested. Not only were they 
behaving with perfe* l decorum, but their rough faces 
wore an aspect of so'tmnity which I do not suppose was 
by any means their usual aspect. 

I gave them ro text. I had one myself, which was 
the necessary thing. They should have it by-and-bye. 

“ Once upon a time,” I said, “ a man went up a 
mountain, and stayed there till it was dark, and stayed 
on. Now, a man who findc himself on a mountain as 
the sun is going down, especially if he is alone, makes 
haste to get down before it is dark. But this man went 
up when the sun was going down, and, as I say, con- 
tinued there for a good long Awhile after it was dark. 
You will want to know why. I w ill tell you. He wished 
to be alone. He hadn’t a house of his own. He never 
had all the time he lived. He hadn’t even a room of 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


212 


his own into which he could go, and bolt the door of it. 
True, he had kind friends, who gave him a bed : but 
they were all poor people, and their houses were small, 
and very likely they had large families, and he could not 
always find a quiet place to go into. And I daresay, if 
he had had a room, he would have been a little troubled 
with the children constantly coming to find him ; for 
however much he loved them — and no man was ever so 
fond of children as he was — he needed to be left quiet 
sometimes. So, upon this occasion, he went up the 
mountain just to be quiet. He had been all day with a 
crowd of people, and he felt that it was time to be alone. 
For he had been talking with men all day, which tires 
and sometimes confuses a man’s thoughts, and now he 
wanted to talk with God — for that makes a man strong, 
and puts all the confusion in order again, and lets a man 
know what he is about. So he went to the top of the 
hill. That was his secret chamber. It had no door \ 
but that did not matter — no one could see him but God. 
There he stayed for hours — sometimes, I suppose, kneel- 
ing in his prayer to God ; sometimes sitting, tired with 
his own thinking, on a stone ; sometimes walking about, 
looking forward to what would come next — not anxious 
about it, but contemplating it. For just before he came 
up here, some of the people who had been with him 
wanted to make him a king ; and this would not do — 
this was not what God wanted of him, and therefore he 
got rid of them, and came up here to talk to God. It 
was so quiet up here ! The earth had almost vanished. 
He could see just the bare hill- top beneath him, a glin> 


MY FIRST SERMON IN THE SEABOARD PARISH. 213 


irier below, and the sky and the stars over his head. 
The people had all gone away to their own homes, and 
perhaps next day would hardly think about him at all, 
busy catching fish, or digging their gardens, or making 
things for their houses. .But he knew that God would 
not forget him the next day any more than this day, and 
that God had sent him not to be the king that these 
people wanted him to be, but their servant. So, to make 
his heart strong, I say, he went up into the mountain 
alone to have a talk with his Father. How quiet it all 
was up here, I say, and how noisy it had been down there 
a little while ago ! But God had been in the noise then 
as much as he was in the quiet now — the only difference 
being that he could not then be alone with him. I need 
not teli you who this man was — it was the king of men, 
the servant of men, the Lord Jesus Christ, the everlasting 
Son of our Father in heaven. 

“Now this mountain on which he was praying had a 
small lake at the foot of it — that is, about thirteen miles 
Jong, and five miles broad. Not wanting even his usual 
companions to be with him this evening — partly, I pre- 
sume, because they were of the same mind as those who 
desired to take him by force and make him a king — he 
had sent them away in their boat, to go across this water 
to the other side, where were their homes and the:;, 
families. Now, it was not pitch dark either on the 
mountain-top or on the water down be'ow; yet I doubt 
if any other man than he would have been keen-eyed 
eno igh to discover that little boat down in the middle 
of the lake, much distressed by the west wind that blew 


214 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


right in their teeth. But he loved every man in it so 
much, that I think even as he was talking to his 
Father, his eyes would now and then go looking for and 
finding it — watching it on its way across to the other 
side. You must remember that it was a little boat; and 
there are often tremendous storms upon these small lakes 
with great mountains about them. For the wind will 
come ail at once, rushing down through the clefts in as 
sudden a squall as ever overtook a sailor at sea. And 
then, you know, there is no sea-room. If the wind get 
the better of them, they are on the shore in a few 
minutes, whichever way the wind may blow. He saw 
them worn out at the oar, toiling in rowing, for the wind 
was contrary unto them. So the time for loneliness and 
prayer was over, and the time to go down out of his 
secret chamber and help his brethren was come. He 
did not need to turn and say good-bye to his Father, as 
if he dwelt on that mountain-top alone : his Father was 
down there on the lake as well. He went straight down. 
Could not his Father, if he too was down on the lake, 
help them without him 1 Yes. But he wanted him to do 
it, that they might see that he did it. Otherwise they 
could only have thought that the wind fell and the 
waves lay down, without supposing for a moment that 
their Master or his Father had had any dim j to do with 
it. They would have done just as people do now-a-days: 
they think that the help comes of itself, instead of by 
the will of him who determined from the first that 
men should be helped. So the Master went down the 
hid. When he reached the border of the lake, the 


MY FIRST SERMON IN THE SEABOARD PARISH. 215 


wind being from the other side, he must have found the 
waves breaking furiously upon the rocks. But that 
made no difference to him. He looked out as he stood 
alone on the edge amidst the rushing wind and the 
noise of the water, out over the waves under the clear 
starry sky, saw where the tiny boat was tossed about like 
a nutshell, and set out.” 

The mariners had been staring at me up to this point, 
leaning forward on their benches, for sailors are nearly as 
fond of a good yarn as they are of tobacco ; and I heard 
afterwards that they had voted parson’s yarn a good one. 
Now, however, I saw one of them, probably more igno- 
rant than the others, cast a questioning glance at his 
neighbour. It was not returned, and he fell again into a 
listening attitude. He had no idea of what was coming. 
He probably thought parson had forgotten to say how 
Jesus had come by a boat. 

“ The companions of our Lord had not been willing 
to go away and leave him behind. Now, I dare say, 
they wished more than ever that he had been with them 
— not that they thought he could do anything with a 
storm, only that somehow they would have been less 
afraid with his face to look at. They had seen him cure 
men of dreadful diseases; they had seen him turn 
water into wine — some of them ; they had seen him feed 
five thousand people the day before with live loaves and 
two small fishes; but had one of their number sug- 
gested that if he had been with them, they would have 
been safe from the stDrm, they would not have talked any 
nonsense about the laws of nature, not having learned 


216 


THE SEABOARD PARISH 


that kind of nonsense, but they would have said that 
was quite a different thing — altogether too much to ex- 
pect or believe : nobody could make the wind mind what 
it was about, o? keep the water from drowning you if you 
fell into it and couldn’t swim ; or such like. 

“ At length, when they were nearly worn out, taking 
feebler and feebler strokes, sometimes missing the water 
altogether, at other times burying their oars in it up to 
the handles — as they rose on the crest of a huge wave, 
one of them gave a cry, and they all stopped rowing and 
stared, leaning forward to peer through the darkness. 
And through the spray which the wind tore from the 
tops of the waves and scattered before it like dust, they 
saw, perhaps a hundred yards or so from the boat, some- 
thing standing up from the surface of the water. It 
seemed to move towards them. It was a shape like a 
man. They all cried out with fear, as was natural, for 
they thought it must be a ghost.” 

How the faces of the sailors strained towards me at 
this part of the story ! 1 was afraid one of them espe- 

cially was on the point of getting up to speak, as we have 
heard of sailors doing in c her eh. I went on. 

“ But then, over the noise of the wind and the waters 
came the voice they kuew so well. It said, 1 Be of good 
cheer ; it is I. Be not afraid/ I should think, between 
wonder and gladness, they hardly knew for some mo- 
ments where they were or what they were about. Peter 
was the first to recover himself apparently. In the first 
flush of his delight he felt strong and full of courage 
* Lord, if it be thou/ he said, ‘ bid me come unto thee 


MY FIRST SERMON IN THE SEABOARD PARISH. 2l7 


on the water.’ Jesus just said, * Come ;* and Peter un- 
shipped his oar, and scrambled over the gunwale on to 
the sea. But when he let go his hold of the boat, and 
began to look about him, and saw how the wind 
was tearing the water, arfd how it tossed and raved be- 
tween him and Jesus, he began to be afraid. And as 
soon as he began to be afraid he began to sink ; but he 
had, notwithstanding his fear, just sense enough to do 
the one sensible thing : he cried out, c Lord, save me.* 
And Jesus put out his hand, and took hold of him, and 
lifted him out of the water, and said to him, ‘ O thou of 
little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt V And then they 
got into the boat, and the wind fell all at once and 
altogether. 

“Now, you will not think that Peter was a coward, 
will you ? It wasn’t that he hadn’t courage, but that he 
hadn’t enough of it. And why was it that he hadn’t 
enough of it 1 Because he hadn’t faith enough. Peter 
was always very easily impressed with the look of things. 
It wasn’t at all likely that a man should be able to walk 
on the water; and yet Peter found himself standing 
on the water : you would have thought that when 
once he found himself standing on the water, he need not 
be afraid of the wind and the waves that lay between 
him and Jesus. But they looked so ugly that the fear- 
fulness of them took hold of his heart, and his courage 
went. You would have thought that the greatest trial of 
nis courage was over when he got out of the boat, and 
that there was comparatively little more ahead of him. 
Yet the sight of the waves and the blast of the boisterous 


tiS 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


wind were too much for him. I will tell you how I fancy 
it was ; and I think there are several instances of the 
same kind of thing in Peter’s life. When he got out of 
the boat, and found himself standing on the water, he 
began to think much of himself for being able to do so, 
and fancy himself better and greater than his com- 
panions, and an especial favourite of God above them. 
Now, there is nothing that kills faith sooner than pride. 
The two are directly against each other. The moment 
that Peter grew proud, and began to think about himself 
instead of about his Master, he began to lose his faith, 
and then he grew afraid, and then he began to sink — 
and that brought him to his senses. Then he forgot him- 
self and remembered his Master, and then the hand of 
the Lord caught him, and the voice of the Lord gently re- 
buked him for the smallness of his faith, asking, ‘ Where- 
fore didst thou doubt 1 * I wonder if Peter was able to 
read his own heart sufficiently well to answer that where- 
fore. I do not think it likely at this period of his history 
But God has immeasurable patience, and before he had 
done teaching Peter, even in this life, he had made him 
know quite well that pride and conceit were at the root of 
all his failures. Jesus did not point it cut to him now. 
Faith was the only thing that would reveal that to him, 
as well as cure him of it ; and was, therefore, the only 
thing he required of him in vis rebuke. I suspect Peter 
was helped back into the boat by the eager hands of his 
companions, already in a humbler state of mind than when 
he left it ; but before his pride would be quite over- 
come. it would need that same voice of loving-kindnes* 


MY FIRST SERMON IN THE SEABOARD PARISH. 2IQ 


tD call him Satan, and the voice of the cock to bring to 
his mind his loud boast, and his sneaking denial ; nay, 
even the voice of one who had never seen the Lord till 
after his death, but was yet a readier disciple than he— 
the voice of St Paul, to rebuke him because he dis- 
sembled, and was not downright honest. But at the last 
even he gained the crown of martyrdom, enduring all ex- 
tremes, nailed to the cross like his Master, rather than 
deny his name. This should teach us to distrust our- 
selves, and yet have great hope for ourselves, and end- 
less patience with other people. But to return to the 
story, and what the story itself teaches us. 

“ If the disciples had known that Jesus saw them from 
the top of the mountain, and was watching them all the 
time, would they have been frightened at the storm, as I 
have little doubt they were, for they were only fresh- 
water fishermen, you know 1 Well, to answer my own 
question ” — I went on in haste, for I saw one or two of 
the sailors with an audible answer hovering on their lips 
— “ I don’t know that, as they then were, it would have 
made so much difference to them ; for none of them had 
risen much above the look of the things nearest them yet 
But supposing you, who know something about him, were 
alone on the sea, and expecting your boat to be swamped 
every moment — if you found out all at once, that he was 
looking down at you from some lofty hill-top, and seeing 
all round about you in time and space too, would you be 
afraid 1 He might mean you to go to the bottom, you 
know. Wo Ud you mind going to the bottom with 
him looking at youl I do not think I should mind 


220 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


it myself. But I must take care lest I be boastful like 
Peter. 

“ Why should we be afraid of anything with him look- 
ing at us who is the Saviour of men ? But we are afiaid 
of him instead, because we do not believe that he is 
what he says he is — the Saviour of men. We do not 
believe what he offers us is salvation. We think it is 
slavery, and therefore continue slaves. Friends, I will 
speak to you who think you do believe in him. I am 
not going to say that you do not believe in him ; but I 
hope I am going to make you say to yourselves that you 
too deserve to have those words of the Saviour spoken 
to you that were spoken to Peter, ‘ O ye of little faith ! * 
Floating on the sea of your troubles, all kinds of fears 
and anxieties assailing you, is he not on the mountain- 
top? Sees he not the little boat of your fortunes tossed 
with the waves and the contrary wind 1 Assuredly he 
will come to you walking on the waters. It may not be 
in the way you wish, but if not, you will say at last, 4 This 
is better.’ It may be he will come in a form that will 
make you cry out for fear in the weakness of your faith, 
as the disciples cried out — not believing any more than 
they did that it can be he. But will not each of you arouse 
his courage, that to you also he may say, as to the 
woman with the sick daughter whose confidence he so 
sorely tried, ‘Great is thy faith’? Will. you not rouse 
yourself, I say, that you may do him justice, and cast 
off the slavery of your own dread ? O ye of little faith, 
wherefore will ye doubt ? Do not think that the Lord 
sees and will not come. Down the mountain assuredly 


MY FIRST SERMON IN THE SEABOARD PARISH. 221 


he will come, and you are now as safe in your troubles 
as the disciples were in theirs with Jesus looking on. 
They did not know it, but it was so : the Lord was 
watching them. And when you look back upon you* 
past lives, cannot you see some instances of the same 
kind — when you felt and acted as if the Lord had for- 
gotten you, and found afterwards that he had been 
watching you all the time ? 

“ But the reason why you do not trust him more is 
that you obey him so little. If you would only ask what 
God would have you to do, you would soon fiud your 
confidence growing. It is because you are proud, and 
envious, and greedy after gain, that you do not trust 
him more. Ah ! trust him if it were only to get rid of 
these evil things, and be clean and beautiful in heart. 

“ O sailors with me on the ocean of life, will you, 
knowing that he is watching you from his mountain- 
top, do and say the things that hurt, and wrong, and 
disappoint him? Sailors on the waters that surround 
this globe, though there be no great mountain that over- 
looks the little lake on which you float, not the less does 
he behold you, and care for you, and watch over you. 
Will you do that which is unpleasing, distressful to him I 
Will you be irreverent, cruel, coarse? Will you say evil 
things, lie, and delight in vile stories and reports, with 
his eye on you, watching your ship on its watery ways, 
ever ready to come over the waves to help you ? It is a 
fine thing, sailors, to fear nothing ; but it would be far 
finer to fear nothing because he is above all, and over 
all, and in you alL Lor his sake and for his love, give 


222 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


up everything bad, and take him for your captaia 
He will be both captain and pilot to you, and steer you 
safe into the port of glory. Now to God the Father,” 
&c. 

This is very nearly the sermon I preached that first 
Sunday morning. I followed it up with a short enforce- 
ment in the afternoon 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING. 

the evening we met in Connie’s room, as 
usual, to have our talk. And this is what 
came out of it. 

The window was open. The sun was in 
the west We sat a little aside out of the course of his 
radiance, and let him look full into the room. Only 
Wynnie sat back in a dark corner, as if she would get 
out of his way. Below him the sea lay bluer than you 
could believe even when you saw it — blue with a deli- 
cate yet deep silky blue, the exquisiteness of which was 
thrown up by the brilliant white lines of its lapping on 
the high coast, to the northward. We had just sat down, 
when Dora broke out with — 

“ I saw Niceboots at church. He did stare at you, 
papa, as if he had never heard a sermon before.” 

“ I dare say he never heard such a sermon before ! * 
said Connie, with the perfect confidence of inexperience 



224 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


and partiality — not to say ignorance, seeing she had not 
heard the sermon herself. 

Here Wynnie spoke from her dark corner, apparently 
forcing herself to speak, and thereby giving what seemed 
an unpleasant tone to what she said. 

“ Well, papa, I don’t know what to think. You are 
always telling us to trust in Him — but how can we, if we 
are not good ? ” 

“ The first good thing you can do, is to look up to 
him. That is the beginning of trust in him, and the 
most sensible thing that it is possible for us to do. That 
is faith.” 

“ But it *s no use sometimes.” 

u How do you know that ? ” 

u Because you — I mean I — can’t feel good, or care 
about it at all.” 

“ But is that any ground for saying that it is no use— 
that he does not heed you? that he disregards the 
look cast up to him ? that till the heart goes with the 
will, he who made himself strong to be the helper of 
the weak, who pities most those who are most destitute 
—and who so destitute as those who do not love what 
they want to love — except, indeed, those who don’t want 
to love ? — that till you are well on toward* all right by 
earnestly seeking it, he won’t help you? You are to 
judge him from yourself, are you ?— forgetting that all 
the misery in you is just because you have not got his 
grand presence with you ? ” 

I spoke so earnestly as to be somewhat incoherent in 
words. But my reader will understand. Wynnie was 


ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING. 


225 


silent. Connie, as if partly to help her sister, followed 
on the same side. 

“ I don’t know exactly how to say what I mean, papa, 
but I wish I could get this lovely afternoon, all full of 
sunshine and blue, into unity with all that you teach u? 
about Jesus Christ. I wish this beautiful day came in 
with my thought of him, like the frame — gold, and red, 
and blue— that you have to that picture of him at 
home. Why doesn't it?” 

“Just because you have not enough of faith in him, 
iny dear. You do not know him well enough yet 
You do not yet believe that he means you all gladness, 
heartily, honestly, thoroughly.” 

“And no suffering, papa?” 

“ I did not say that, my dear. There you are on 
your couch and can't move. But he does mean you 
such gladness, such a full sunny air and blue sea of 
blessedness that this suffering shall count for little in 
it ; nay, more, shall be taken in for part, and, like the 
rocks that interfere with the roll of the sea, flash out the 
white that glorifies and intensifies the whole — to pass 
away by and by, I trust, none the less. What a chance 
you have, my Connie, of believing in him, of offering 
upon his altar 1” 

“ But,” said my wife, “ are not these feelings in a great 
measure dependent upon the state of one’s health ? i 
find it so different when the sunshine is inside me as 
well as outside me.” 

“ Not a doubt of it, my dear. But that is only the 
more reason for rising above all that. From the way 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


*26 


some people speak of physical difficulties — I don’t mean 
y< u, wife — you would think that they were not merely 
tiie inevitable which they are, but the insurmountable 
which they are not. That they are physical and not 
spiritual, is not only a great consolation, but a strong 
argument for overcoming them. For all that is physical 
is put or is in the process of being put under the feet of 
the spiritual. Do not mistake me. I do not say you 
can make yourself merry or happy, when you are in a 
physical condition which is contrary to such mental 
condition. But you can withdraw from it — not all at 
once ; but by practice and effort, you can learn to with- 
draw from it, refusing to allow your judgments and 
actions to be ruled by it. You can climb up out of the 
fogs, and sit quiet in the sunlight on the hill-side of 
faith. You cannot be merry down below in the fog, for 
there is the fog ; but you can every now and then fly 
with the dove-wings of the soul up into the clear, to 
remind yourself that all this passes away, is but an 
accident, and that the sun shines always, although it 
may not at any given moment be shining on you. 
* What does that matter?’ you will learn to say. ‘ It is 
enough for me to know that the sur. does shine, and 
that this is only a weary fog that is round about me for 
the moment. I shall come out into the light beyond 
presently.’ This is faith — faith in God, who is the light, 
and is all in all. I believe that the most glorious in- 
stances of calmness in suffering are thus achieved ; 
that the sufferers really do not suffer what one of us 
would if thrown into their physical condition wit’ out 


ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING. 


*27 


the refuge of theii spiritual condition as well ; for they 
have taken refuge in the inner chamber. Out of the 
spring of their life a power goes forth that quenches 
the flames of the furnace of their suffering, so far at 
least that it does not touch the deep life, cannot make 
them miserable, does not drive them from the posses- 
sion of their soul in patience, which is the divine citadel 
of the suffering. Do you understand me, Connie V* 

“ I do, papa. I think, perfectly.” 

“ Still less, then, is the fact that the difficulty is phy- 
sical to be used as an excuse for giving way to ill-temper, 
and, in fact, leaving ourselves to be tossed and shaken 
by every tremble of our nerves. That is as if a man 
should give himself into the hands and will and caprice 
of an organ-grinder, to work upon him, not with the 
music of the spheres, but with the wretched growling of 
the streets.” 

“But,” said Wynnie, “I have heard you yourself, 
papa, make excuse for people’s ill-temper on this very 
ground, that they were out of health. Indeed,” she 
went on, half-crying, “ I have heard you do so for myself 
when you did not know that I was within hearing.” 

“ Yes, my dear, most assuredly. It is no fiction, but 
a real difference that lies between excusing ourselves and 
excusing other people. No doubt the same excuse is 
just for ourselves that is just for other people. But we 
can do something to put ourselves right upon a higher 
principle, and therefore we should not waste our time in 
excuaing, or even in condemning ourselves, but make 
haste up the hill. Where we cannot work— that is, ir 


228 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


the life of another — we have time to make all the excuse 
we can. Nay, more ; it is only justice there. We are 
not bound to insist on our own rights, even of excuse ; 
the wisest thing often is to forego them. But we are 
bound by heaven, earth, and hell, to give them to other 
people. And, besides, what a comfort to ourselves to 
be able to say, * It is true So-and-so was cross to-day. But 
it wasn’t in the least that he wasn’t friendly, or didn't 
like me ; it was only that he had eaten something that 
hadn’t agreed with him. I could see it in his eye. He 
had one of his headaches.’ Thus, you see, justice to 
our neighbour, and comfort to ourselves, is one and the 
same thing. But it would be a sad thing to have to 
think that when we found ourselves in the same ungracious 
condition, from whatever cause, we had only to submit 
to it saying, ‘ It is a law of nature,’ as even those who 
talk most about laws will not do, when those laws come 
between them and their own comfort. They are ready 
enough then to call in the aid of higher laws, which, so 
far from being contradictory, overrule the lower to get 
things into something like habitable, endurable condi- 
tion. It may be a law of nature, but what has the Law 
of the Spirit of Life to propound anent it ? as the Scotch 
lawyers would say.” 

A little pause followed, during which I hope some of 
us were thinking. That Wynnie, at least, was, her next 
question made evident 

“What you say about a law of nature and a law of the 
Spirit, makes me think again how that walking on the 
water has always been a puzzle to me.” 


ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING. 


229 


“It could hardly be other, seeing that we cannot pos- 
sibly understand it,” I answered. 

“ But I find it so hard to believe. Can’t you say 
something, papa, to help me to believe it ] ” 

“ I think if you admit what goes before, you will find 
there is nothing against reason in the story.” 

“ Tell me, please, what you mean.” 

“If all things were made by Jesus, the Word of God, 
would it be reasonable that the water that he had created 
should be able to drown him ? ” 

“ It might drown his body.” 

“It would if he had not the power over it still, to 
prevent it from laying hold of him. But just think for a 
moment. God is a spirit. Spirit is greater than matter. 
Spirit makes matter. Think what it was for a human 
body to have such a divine creative power dwelling in 
it as that which dwelt in the human form of Jesus! 
What power, and influence, and utter rule that spirit 
must have over the body in which it dwells ! We cannot 
imagine how much ; but if we have so much power over 
our bodies, how -much more must the pure, divine Jesus 
have had over his ! I suspect this miracle was wrought, 
not through anything done to the water, but through the 
power of the spirit over the body of Jesus, which was all 
obedient thereto. I am not explaining the miracle, for 
that I cannot do. One day I think it will be plain com- 
mon sense to us. But now I am only showing you what 
seems to me to bring us a step nearer to the essential 
region of the miracle, and so far make it easier to believe. 
If we look at the history of our Lord, we shall find that, 


*30 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


true real human body as his was, it was yet used by his 
spirit after a fashion in which we cannot yet use ou r 
bodies. And this is only reasonable. Let me give you 
an instance. You remember how, on the Mount of 
Transfiguration, that body shone so that the light of it 
illuminated all his garments. You do not surely suppose 
that this shine was external — physical light, as we say, 
me?'ely1 No doubt it was physical light, for how else 
would their eyes have seen it ? But where did it come 
from] What was its source? I think it was a natural 
outburst of glory from the mind of Jesus, filled with the 
perfect life of communion with his Father — the light of 
his divine blessedness taking form in physical radiance 
that permeated and glorified all that surrounded him. 
As the body is the expression of the soul, as the face of 
Jesus himself was the expression of the being, the thought, 
the love of Jesus, in like manner this radiance was the 
natural expression of his gladness, even in the face of 
that of which they had b^en talking — Moses, Elias, and 
he — namely, the decease that he should accomplish at 
Jerusalem. Again, after his resurrection, he convinced 
the hands, as well as the eyes, of doubting Thomas, that 
he was indeed there in the body; and yet that body 
could appear and disappear as the Lord willed. All 
tliis is full of marvel, I grant you; but probably far 
more intelligible to us in a further state of existence than 
some of the most simple facts with regard to our own 
bodies are to us now, only that we are so used to them 
that we never think how unintelligible they really 


ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING. 


231 


u But then about Peter, papa ? What you have been 
saying will not apply to Peter’s' body, you know.” 

“ I confess there is more difficulty there. But if you 
can suppose that such power were indwelling in Jesus, 
you cannot limit the sphere of its action. As he is the 
head of the body, his church, in all spiritual things, so 
I firmly believe, however little we can understand about 
it, is he in all natural things as well. Peter’s faith in him 
brought even Peter’s body within the sphere of the outgo- 
ing power of the Master. Do you suppose that because 
Peter ceased to be brave and trusting, therefore Jesus with- 
drew from him some sustaining power, and allowed him 
to sink 1 I do not believe it. I believe Peter’s sinking fol- 
lowed naturally upon his loss of confidence. Thus he fell 
away from the life of the Master ; was no longer, in that 
way I mean, connected with the Head, was instantly 
under the dominion of the natural law of gravitation, as 
we call it, and began to sink. Therefore the Lord must 
take other means to save him. He must draw nigh to 
him in a bodily manner. The pride of Peter had with- 
drawn him from the immediate spiritual influence of 
Christ, conquering his matter; and therefore the Lord 
must come over the stormy space between, come nearer 
to him in the body, and from his own height of safety 
above the sphere of the natural law, stretch out to him 
the arm of physical aid, lift him up, lead him to the 
boat. The whole salvation of the human race is figured 
m this story. It is all Christ, my love. Does this help 
you to believe at all 1 ” 

u I think it does, papa. But it wants thinking ovei 


*3* 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


a good deal. I always find as I think, that lighter bits 
shine out here and there in a thing I have no hope of 
understanding altogether. That always helps me to 
believe that the rest might be understood too, if I were 
only clever enough.” 

* Simple enough, not clever enough, my dear.” 

u But there’s one thing,” said my wife, “ that is more 
interesting to me than what you have been talking about. 
It is the other instances in the life of St Peter in which 
you said he failed in a similar manner from pride or 
self-satisfaction.” 

“ One, at least, seems to me very clear. You have 
often remarked to me, Ethel, how little praise servants 
can stand ; how almost invariably after you have com- 
mended the diligence or skill of any of your household, 
as you felt bound to do, one of the first visible results 
was either a falling away in the performance by which 
she had gained the praise, or a more or less violent 
access, according to the nature of the individual, of 
self-conceit, soon breaking out in bad temper or imper- 
tinence. Now you will see precisely the same kind of 
thing in Peter.” 

Here I opened my New Testament, and read frag- 
mentarily, — “ ‘ But whom say ye that lam? . , . Thou 
art the Christ, the Son of the living God. . . . Blessed 
art thou, Simon. . . . My Father hath revealed that 
unto thee. I will give unto thee the keys of the king- 
dom of heaven. ... I must suffer many things, and be 
killed, and be raised again the third day. ... Be it far 
from thee, Lord. This shall not be unto thee. . . . Get 


ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING. 


*33 


thee behind me, Satan. Thou art an offence unto me. 
Just contemplate the change here in the words of our 
Lord. ‘ Blessed art thou.* ‘ Thou art an offence unto 
me/ Think what change has passed on Peter’s mood 
before the second of these words could be addressed to 
him to whom the first had just been spoken. The Lord 
had praised him. Peter grew self-sufficient, even to the 
rebuking of him whose praise had so uplifted him. 
But it is ever so. A man will gain a great moral victory : 
glad first, then uplifted, he will fall before a paltry temp- 
tation. I have sometimes wondered, too, whether his 
denial of our Lord had anything to do with his satisfac- 
tion with himself for making that onslaught upon the 
high priest’s servant. It was a brave thing and a faith- 
ful to draw a single sword against a multitude. In his 
fiery eagerness and inexperience, the blow, well meant 
to cleave Malchus’s head, missed, and only cut off his 
ear ; but Peter had herein justified his confident saying 
that he would not deny him. He was not one to deny 
his Lord who had been the first to confess him ! Yet ere 
the cock had crowed, ere the morning had dawned, the 
vulgar grandeur of the palace of the high priest, (for 
let it be art itself, it was vulgar grandeur beside that 
grandeur which it caused Peter to deny,) and the accus- 
ing tone of a maid-servant, were enough to make him 
quail whom the crowd with lanterns, and toiches, and 
weapons, had only roused to fight. True, he was excited 
then, and now he was cold in the middle of the r ight, 
with Jesus gone from his sight a prisoner, and for the 
faces of friends that had there surrounded him and 


234 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


strengthened him with their sympathy, now only the 
faces of those who were, or whom at least Peter thought 
to be on the other side, looking at him curiously, as a 
Strange intruder into their domains. Alas, that the 
courage which led him to follow the Lord should have 
thus led him, not to deny him, but into the denial of 
him ! Yet why should I say alas f If the denial of our 
Lord lay in his heart a possible thing, only prevented 
by his being kept in favourable circumstances for con- 
fessing him, it was a thousand times better that he 
should deny him, and thus know what a poor wea* 
thing that heart of his w r as, trust it no more, and give 
it up to the Master to make it strong, and pure, and 
grand. For such an end the Lord was willing to bear 
all the pain of Peter’s denial. Oh, the love of that Son 
of Man, who in the midst of all the wretched weaknesses 
of those who surrounded him, loved the best in them, 
and looked forward to his own victory for them that 
thev might become all that they were meant to be — Ike 
him ; that the lovely glimmerings of truth and love that 
were in them now — the breakings forth of the light th$t 
lighteneth every man — might grow into the perfect 
human day ; loving them even the more that they were 
so helpless, so oppressed, so far from that ideal whicH 
was their life, and which all their dim desires were 
reaching after ! " 

Here I ceased, and a little overcome with the great 
picture in my soul to which I had been able only to 
give the poorest expression, rose, and retired to my own 
room. There I could only fall on my knees and pray 


ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING. 


235 


that the Lord Christ, who had died for me, might have 
his own way with me— that it might be worth his while 
to have done what he did and what he was doing now 
for me. To my Elder Brother, my Lord, and my God, 
I gave myself yet again, confidently, because he cared 
to have me, and my very breath was his. I would be 
what he wanted, who knew all about it, and had done 
everything that I might be a son of God — a living glory 
of gladnecib 


CHAPTER XIX. 


NICEBOOTS. 

HE next morning the captain of the lost vessel 
called upon me early to thank me for him- 
self and his men. He was a fine, honest- 
looking, burly fellow, dressed in blue from 
head to heel. He might have sat for a portrait of 
Chaucer’s shipman as far as his hue and the first 
look of him went It was clear that “ in many a tem- 
pest had his beard be shake,” and certainly “ the hote 
somer had made his hew all broun;” but farther the 
likeness would hardly go, for the “good fellow ” which 
Chaucer applies with such irony to the shipman of his 
time, who would filch wine, and drown all the captives 
he made in a sea-fight, was clearly applicable in good 
earnest to this shipman. Still I thought I had some- 
thing to bring against him, and therefore before we 
parted I said to him — 

“The} tell me captain, that your vessel was not 



NICEBOOTS. 


*37 


seaworthy, and that you could not but have known 
that” 

“ She was my own craft, sir, and I judged her fit for 
several voyages more. If she had been A 1 she couldn’t 
have been mine ; and a man must do what he can for 
his family. 

M But you were risking your life, you know.” 

“ A few chances more or less don’t much signify to a 
sailor, sir. There ain’t nothing to be done without risk. 
You’ll find an old tub go voyage after voyage, and she 
beyond bail, and a clipper fresh off the stocks go down 
in the harbour. It ’s all in the luck, sir, I assure you.” 

“ Well, if it were your own life I should have nothing 
to say, seeing you have a family to look after ; but what 
about the poor fellows who made the voyage with you 1 
Did they know what kind of a vessel they were embark- 
ing in 1 ” 

“ Wherever the captain’s ready to go he ’ll always find 
men ready to follow him. Bless you, sir, they never ask 
no questions. If a sailor was always to be thinking of 
the chances, he ’d never set his foot off shore.” 

“ Still I don’t think it ’s right they shouldn’t know.” 

“ I daresay they knowed all about the old brig as well 
as I did myself. You gets to know all about a craft just 
as you do about her captain. She ’s got a character of 
he: own, and she can’t hide it long, any more than you 
can hide yours, sir, begging your pardon.” 

“ I dare say that ’s all correct, but still I shouldn’t like 
any one to say to me, * You ought to have told me, cap- 
tain.’ Therefore, you see, I ’m telling you, captain, and 


* 3 * 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


now I’m clear. — Have a glass of wine before you gofl* 
I concluded, ringing the bell. 

“ Thank you, sir. I ’ll turn over what you Ve been 
saying, and anyhow I take it kind of you.” 

So we parted. I have never seen him since, and shall 
not most likely in this world. But he looked like a man 
that could understand why and wherefore I spoke as I 
did. And I had the advantage of having had a chance 
of doing something for him first of all. Let no man 
who wants to do anything for the soul of a man lose a 
chance of doing something for his body. He ought to 
he willing, and ready, which is more than willing, to do 
that whether or not ; but there are those who need this 
reminder. Of many a soul Jesus laid hold by healing the 
suffering the body brought upon it No one but him- 
self can tell how much the nucleus of the church was 
composed of and by those who had received health from 
his hands, loving-kindness from the word of his mouth. 
My own opinion is, that herein lay the very germ of the 
kernel of what is now the ancient, was then the infant 
church ; that from them, next to Lhe disciples themselves, 
went forth the chief power of life in love, for they too 
had seen the Lord, and in their own humble way could 
preach and teach concerning him. What memories of 
him theirs must have been ! 

Things went on very quietly, that is, as I mean now, 
from the view-point of a historian, without much to re- 
cord bearing notably upon after events, for the greater 
part of the next week. I wandered about my parish, 
making acquaintance with different people in an outside 


NICEBOOTS. 


239 


sort of way, only now and then finding an opportunity 
of seeing into their souls except by conclusion. But I 
enjoyed endlessly the aspects of the country. It was not 
picturesque except in parts. There was little wood and 
there were no hills, only undulations, though many of 
them were steep enough even from a pedestrian’s point of 
view. Neither, however, were there any plains except 
high moorland tracts. But the impression of the whole 
country was large, airy, sunshiny, and it was clasped in 
the arms of the infinite, awful, yet how bountiful sea — if 
one will look at the ocean in its world-wide, not to say 
its eternal aspects, and not out of the fears of a hide- 
bound love of life I The sea and the sky, I must confess, 
dwarfed the earth, made it of small account beside them ; 
but who could complain of such an influence 1 At least, 
not I. 

My children bathed in this sea every day, and gathered 
strength and knowledge from it. It was, as I have indi- 
cated, a dangerous coast to bathe upon. The sweep of 
the tides varied with the varying sands that were cast 
up. There was now in one place, now in another, a 
strong undertow , as they called it — a reflux, that is, of 
the inflowing waters, which was quite sufficient to carry 
those who could not swim out into the great deep, and 
rendered much exertion necessary, even in those who 
could, to regain the shore. But there was a fine, strong 
Cornish woman to take charge of the ladies and the 
little boys, and she, watching the ways of the wild mon- 
ster, knew the when and the where, and all about it. 

Connie got out upon the downs every day. She in> 


240 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


proved in health certainly, and we thought a little even 
in her powers of motion. The weather continued su- 
perb. What rain there was fell at night, just enough for 
Nature to wash her face with, and so look quite fresh in 
the morning. We contrived a dinner on the sands on 
the other side of the bay, for the Friday of this same 
week. 

The morning rose gloriously. Harry and Charlie 
were turning the house upside down, to judge by their 
noise, long before I was in the humour to get up, for I 
had been reading late the night before. I never made 
much objection to mere noise, knowing that I could 
stop it the moment I pleased, and knowing, which was 
of more consequence, that so far from there being any- 
thing wrong in making a noise, the sea would make noise 
enough in our ears before we left Kilkhaven. The mo- 
ment, however, that I heard a thread of whining or a 
burst of anger in the noise, I would interfere at once — 
♦rearing these just as things that must be dismissed at 
once. Harry and Charlie were, I say, to use their own 
form of speech, making such a row that morning, how- 
ever, that I was afraid of some injury to the house or 
furniture, which were not our own. So I opened mj 
door, and called out — 

“ Harry ! Charlie ! What on earth are you about ? ” 

“Nothing, papa,* answered Charlie. “Only it’s so 
jolly!” 

“ What is jolly, my boy 1 K I asked. 

“ Oh, I don’t know, papa ! It ’s so jolly ! n 

“Is it the sunshine 1 ” thought I; “and the windl 


NICEBOOTS. 


2 4 l 


God’s world all over? The God of gladness in the 
hearts of the lads? Is it that? No wonder, then, that 
they cannot tell what it is ! ” 

I withdrew into my room ; and so far from seeking 
tc put an end to the noise — I knew Connie did not 
mind it — listened to it with a kind of reverence, as the 
outcome of a gladness which the God of joy had kindled 
in their hearts. Soon after, however, I heard certain 
dim growls of expostulation from Harry, and having, 
from experience, ground tor believing that the elder was 
tyrannising over the younger, I stopped that and the 
noise together, sending Charlie to find out where the 
tide would be between one and two o’clock, and Harry 
to run to the top of the hill, and find out the direction 
of the wind. Before I was dressed, Charlie was knock- 
ing at my door with the news that it would be half-tide 
about one; and Harry speedily followed with the dis- 
covery that the wind was north-east by south-west, 
which of course determined that the sun would shine all 
day. 

As the dinner-houi drew near, the servants went over, 
with Walter at their head, to choose a rock convenient 
for a table, under the shelter o. the rocks on the sands 
across the bay. Thither, when Walter returned, we 
bore our Connie, carrying her litter close by the edge of 
the retreating tide, which sometimes broke in a ripple of 
music under her, wetting our feet with innocuous rush. 
The child’s delight was extreme, as she thus skimmed 
the edge of the ocean, with the little ones gamboling 
about her, and her mamma and Wynnie walking quietly 


•42 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


on the landward side, for she wished to have no one 
between her and the sea. 

After scrambling with difficulty over some rocky 
ledges, and stopping, at Connie’s request, to let her 
look into a deep pool in the sand, which somehow or 
other retained the water after the rest had retreated, we 
set her down near the mouth of a cave, in the shadow 
of a rock. And there was our dinner nicely laid for us 
on a flat rock in front of the cave. The cliffs rose 
behind us, with curiously-curved and variously-angled 
strata. The sun in his full splendour threw dark shadows 
on the brilliant yellow sand, more and more of which 
appeared as the bright blue water withdrew itself, now 
rippling over it as if it meant to hide it all up again, 
now uncovering more as it withdrew for another rush. 
Before we had finished our dinner, the foremost wavelets 
appeared so far away over the plain of the sand, that it 
seemed a long walk to the edge that had been almost at 
our feet a little while ago. Between us and it lay z 
lovely desert of glittering sand. 

When even Charley and Harry had arrived at the 
conclusion that it was time to stop eating, we left the 
shadow and went out into the sun, carrying Connie and 
laying her down in the midst of “ the ribbed sea-sand,” 
which was very ribby to-day. On a shawl a little way 
off from her lay her baby, crowing and kicking with the 
same jollity that had possessed the boys ever since the 
morning. I wandered about with Wynnie on the sands, 
picking up, amongst other things, strange creatures in 
thin shells ending in vegetable-like tufts, if I remembet 


NICEBOOTS. 


*43 


rightly. My wife sat on the end of Connie’s litter, and 
Dora and the boys, a little way off, were trying how far 
the full force of three wooden spades could, in digging a 
hole, keep ahead of the water which was ever tumbling 
in the sand from the sides of the same. Behind, the 
servants were busy washing the plates in a pool, and 
burying the fragments of the feast ; for I made it a rule 
wherever we went that the fair face of nature was not to 
be defiled. I have always taken the part of excursionists 
in these latter days of running to and fro, against those 
who complain that the loveliest places are being destroyed 
by their inroads. But there is one most offensive, even 
disgusting habit amongst them — that of leaving bones, 
fragments of meat pies, and worse than all, pieces of 
greasy paper about the place, which I cannot excuse, 01 
at least defend. Even the surface of Cumberland and 
Westmoreland lakes will be defiled with these floating 
abominations — not abominations at all if they are de- 
cently burned or buried when done with, but certainly 
abominations when left to be cast hither and thither in 
the wind, over the grass, or on the eddy and ripple of 
the pure water, for days after those who have thus left 
their shame behind them have returned to their shops 
or factories. I forgive them for trampling down the 
grass and the ferns. That cannot be helped, and in 
comparison of the good they get, is not to be considered 
a! all. But why should they leave such a savage trail 
behind them as this, forgetting too, that though they 
have done witli the spot, there are others coming aftei 
them to whom these remnants must be an offence. 


244 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


At length in our roaming, Wynnie and I approached a 
long low ridge of rock, rising towards the sea into which 
i; ran. Crossing this, we came suddenly upon the painter 
whom Dora had called Niceboots, sitting with a small 
easel before him. We were right above him ere we 
knew. He had his back towards us, so that we saw at 
once what he was painting. 

“Oh, papa!” cried Wynnie involuntarily, ami the 
painter looked round. 

“ I beg your pardon,” I said. “ We came over from 
the other side, and did not see you before. I hope we 
have not disturbed you much.” 

“ Not in the least,” he answered courteously, and rose 
us he spoke. 

I saw that the subject on his easel suggested that of 
which Wynnie had been making a sketch at the same 
time, on the day when Connie first lay on the top of the 
opposite cliff. But he was not even looking in the same 
direction now. 

“ Do you mind having your work seen before it is 
finished 1 ” 

“ Not in the least, if the spectators will do me the 
favour to remember that most processes have to go 
through a seemingly chaotic stage,” answered he. 

I was struck with the mode and tone of the remark. 

u Here is no common man,” I said to myself, and re- 
sponded to him in something of a similar style. 

“ I wish we could always keep that in mind with re- 
gard to human beings themselves, as well as their works,* 
I said aloud. 


NICEBOOTS. 


245 


The painter looked at me, and I looked at him. 

“ We speak each from the experience of his own pro- 
fession, I presume,” he said. 

“ But,” I returned, glancing at the little picture in oils 
upon his easel, “ your work here, though my knowledge 
of painting is next to nothing — perhaps I ought to say 
nothing at all — this picture must have long ago passed 
the chaotic stage.” 

“ It is nearly as much finished as I care to make it,* 
he returned. “ I hardly count this work at all. I am 
chiefly amusing, or rather pleasing, my own fancy at 
present.” 

“Apparently,” I remarked, “you had the conical 
rock outside the bay for your model, and now you are 
finishing it with your back turned towards it How is 
that?” 

“ I will soon explain,” he answered. “ The moment 
I saw this rock it reminded me of Dante's Purgatory.” 

“ Ah, you are a reader of Dante ? ” I said. “ In the 
original, I hope.” 

“ Yes. A friend of mine, a brother painter, an Italian, 
set me going with that, and once going with Dante, no- 
body could well stop. I never knew what intensity per sc 
was till I began to read Dante.” 

“ That is quite my own feeling. Now, to return to 
your picture.” 

“ Without departing at all from natural forms, I thought 
to make it suggest the Purgatorio to any one who 
remembered the description given of the place ab extra 
by Ulysses, in the end of the twenty-sixth canto of the 


*46 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


Inferno. Of course, that thing there is a mere rock, yet 
it has certain mountain forms about it. I have put it at 
a much greater distance, you see, and have sought to make 
it look a solitary mountain in the midst of a great water. 
You will discover even now that the circles of the Pur- 
gatory are suggested without any approach, I think, to 
artificial structure; and there are occasional hints at 
figures, which you cannot definitely detach from the 
rocks — which, by the way, you must remember, were in 
one part full of sculptures. I have kept the mountain 
near enough, however, to indicate the great expanse of 
wild flowers on the top, which Matilda was so busy 
gathering. I want to indicate too the wind up there in 
the terrestrial paradise, ever and always blowing one way. 
You remember, Mr Walton ? ” — for the young man, 
getting animated, began to talk as if we had known each 
other for some time — and here he repeated the purport 
of Dante’s words in English : — 

** An air of sweetness, changeless in its flow, 

With no more strength than in a soft wind lies, 

Smote peacefully against me on the brow. 

By which the leaves all trembling, level-wise, 

Did every one bend thitherward to where 
The high mount throws its shadow at sunrise.* 

M I thought you said you did not use translations ? " 

u I thought it possible that — Miss Walton (?) ” inter- 
rogatively this — “ might not follow the Italian so easily, 
and I feared to seem pedantic.” 

“ She won’t lag far behind, I flatter myself,” I returned. 
• Whose translation do you quote ? ” 


HICEBOOTS. 


*47 


He hesitated a moment ; then said carelessly : 

“ I have cobbled a few passages after that fashioi 
myself.” 

“ It has the merit of being near the original at least,* 
I returned ; “ and that seems to me one of the chief merits 
a translation can possess.” 

“ Then,” the painter resumed, rather hastily, as if to 
avoid any further remark upon his verses, “you see 
those white things in the air above ? ” Here he turned 
to Wynnie. “ Miss Walton will remember — I think she 
was making a drawing of tne rock at the same time I 
was — how the sea-gulls, or some such birds — only two or 
three of them — kept flitting about the top of it!” 

“ I remember quite well,” answered Wynnie, with a 
look of appeal to me. 

“Yes,” I interposed; “my daughter in describing 
what she had been attempting to draw, spoke especially 
of the birds over the rock. For she said the white lapping 
of the waves looked like spirits trying to get loose, and 
the white birds like foam that had broken its chains, and 
risen in triumph into the air.” 

Here Mr Niceboots, for as yet I did not know what 
else to call him, looked at Wynnie almost with a 
start. 

“ How wonderfully that falls in with my fancy about 
the rock !” he said. “ Purgatory indeed ! with im- 
prisoned souls lapping at its foot, and the free souls 
winging their way aloft in ether. Well, this world is a 
kind of purgatory anyhow — is it not, Mr Walton !” 

“ Certainly it is. We are here tried as by fire, to se« 


*48 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


what our work is — whether wood, hay, and stubble, oi 
gold and silver and precious stones.” 

“ You see,” resumed the painter, " if anybody only 
glanced at my little picture, he would take those for sea- 
birds; but if he looked into it, and began to suspect me, 
he would find out that they were Dante and Beatrice on 
their way to the sphere of the moon.” 

“ In one respect at least, then, your picture has the 
merit of corresponding to fact ; for what thing is there 
in the world, or what group of things, in which the natu- 
ral man will not see merely the things of nature, but the 
spiritual man the things of the spirit?” 

“ I am no theologian,” said the painter, turning away; 
1 thought somewhat coldly. 

But I could see that Wynnie was greatly interested in 
him. Perhaps she thought that here was some enlight- 
enment of the riddle of the world for her, if she could 
but get at what he was thinking. She was used to my 
way of it : here might be something new. 

“ If I can be of any service to Miss Walton with her 
drawing, I shall be happy,” he said, turning again to- 
wards me. 

But his last gesture had made me a little distrustful of 
him, and I received his advances on this point with a 
coldness which I did not wish to make more marked 
than his own towards my last observation. 

* You are very kind,” I said ; “ but Miss Walton does 
cot presume to be an artist.” 

I saw a slight shade pass over Wynnic/s countenance. 
When I turned to Mr Niceboots, a shade of a differeat 


NICEBOOTS. 


*49 


sort was on his. Surely I had said something wrong to 
cast a gloom on two young faces. I made haste to make 
amends. 

“We are just going to have some coffee/’ I said, “ for 
my servants, I see, have managed to kindle a fire. Will 
you come and allow me to introduce you to Mrs Wal- 
ton?” 

“ With much pleasure,” he answered, rising from the 
rock whereon, as he spoke about his picture, he had 
again seated himself. He was a fine-built, black-bearded, 
sunburnt fellow, with clear grey eyes notwithstanding, a 
rather Roman nose, and good features generally. But 
there was an air of suppression, if not of sadness, about 
him, which, however, did not in the least interfere with 
the manliness of his countenance, or of its expression. 

“ But,” I said, “ how am I to effect an introduction, 
seeing I do not yet know your name?” 

I had had to keep a sharp look-out on myself lest 
I should call him Mr Niceboots. He smiled ver) 
graciously, and replied — 

“ My name is Percivale — Charles Percivale.” 

“ A descendant of Sir Percivale of King Arthur’s 
Round Table ? ” 

“ I cannot count quite so far back,” he answered, “as 
that- -not quite to the Conquest,” he added, with a slight 
deepening of his sunburnt hue. “ I do come of a fight- 
ing race, but I cannot claim Sir Percivale.” 

We were now walking along the edge of the still re- 
treating waves towards the group upon the sands, Mr 
Percivale and I foremost, and Wynnie lingering behind. 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


250 


“ Oh, do look here, papa!” she cried, from some little 
distance. 

We turned, and saw her gazing at something on the 
sand at her feet. Hastening back, we found it to be a 
little narrow line of foam-bubbles, which the water had 
left behind it on the sand, slowly breaking and passing 
out of sight. Why there should be foam-bubbles there 
then, and not always, I do not know. But there they 
were — and such colours ! deep rose and grassy green 
and ultramarine blue ; and above all, one dark, yet 
brilliant and intensely-burnished, metallic gold. All of 
them were of a solid-looking burnished colour, like 
opaque body-colour laid on behind translucent crystal. 
Those little ocean bubbles were well worth turning to 
see ; and so I said to Wynnie. But, as we gazed, they 
went on vanishing, one by one. Every moment a 
heavenly glory of hue burst, and was nowhere. 

We walked away again towards the rest of our 
party. 

“ Don’t you think those bubbles more beautiful than 
any precious stones you ever saw, papa ? ” 

“ Yes, my love, I think they are, except it be the opaL 
In the opal, God seems to have fixed the evanescent and 
made the vanishing eternal.” 

“ And flowers are more beautiful things than jewels 1* 
she said, interrogatively. 

“ Many — perhaps most flowers are,” I granted. 

“And did you ever see such curves and delicate 
textures anywhere else as in the clouds, papa?” 

“I think not — in the cirrhous clouds at least — the 


NICEBOOTS. 


*<;« 


frozen ones. But what are you putting me to my 
catechism for in this way, my child ?” 

“ Oh, papa, I could go on a long time with that 
catechism; but I will end with one question more, 
which you will perhaps find a little harder to answer. 
Only, I daresay you have had an answer ready for years 
lest one of us should ask you some day.” 

u No, my love. I never got an answer ready for 
anything lest one of my children should ask me. But 
it is not surprising either that children should be puzzled 
about the things that have puzzled their father, or that 
by the time they are able to put the questions, he should 
have found out some sort of an answer to most of them. 
Go on with your catechism, Wynnie. Now for your 
puzzle I” 

“ It’s not a funny question, papa ; it’s a very serious 
one. I can’t think why the unchanging God should 
have made all the most beautiful things wither and grow 
ugly, or burst and vanish, or die somehow and be no 
more. Mamma is not so beautiful as she once was, is 
she?” 

“ In one way no, but in another and better way much 
more so. But we will not talk about her kind of beauty 
just now : we will keep to the more material loveliness 
of which you have been speaking — though, in truth, no 
loveliness can be only material. — Well, then, for my 
answer: it is, I think, because God loves the beauty 
so much that he makes all beautiful things vanish 
quickly.” 

* I do not understand you, papa.” 


25* 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


u I daresay not, my dear. But I will explain to you a 
little, if Mr Percivale will excuse me.” 

“ On the contrary, I am greatly interested, both in 
the question and the answer.” 

“ Well, then, Wynnie : everything has a soul and a 
body, or something like them. By the body we know 
the soul. But we are always ready to love the bod) 
instead of the soul. Therefore, God makes the bod) 
die continually, that we may learn to love the soul 
indeed. The world is full of beautiful things, but God 
lias saved many men from loving the mere bodies of 
them, by making them poor; and more still by remind- 
ing them that if they be as rich as Croesus all their lives, 
they will be as poor as Diogenes — poorer, without even 
a tub — when this world with all its pictures, scenery, 
books, and — alas for some Christians ! — bibles even, 
shall have vanished away." 

“ Why do you say a/as, papa — if they are Christians 
especially?” 

“ I say alas only from their point of view, not from 
mine. I mean such as are always talking and arguing 
from the Bible, and never giving themselves any trouble 
to do what it tells them. They insist on the anise and 
cummin,- and forget the judgment, mercy, and faith. 
These worship the body of the truth and forget the soul 
of it. If the flowers were not perishable, we should 
cerse to contemplate their beauty, either blinded by the 
passion for hoarding the bodies of them, or dulled by 
the hebetude of commonplaceness that the constant 
presence of them would occasion. To compare great 


NICEBOOTS. 


253 


things with small, the flowers wither, the bubbles break, 
the clouds and sunsets pass, for the very same holy 
reason, in the degree of its application to them, for 
which the Lord withdrew from his disciples and as- 
cended again to his Father — that the Comforter, the 
Spirit of Truth, the Soul of things, might come to them 
and abide with them, and so, the Son return, and the 
Father be revealed. The flower is not its loveliness, 
and its loveliness we must love, else we shall only treat 
them as flower-greedy children, who gather and gather, 
and fill hands and baskets from a mere desire of acqui- 
sition, excusable enough in them, but the same in kind, 
however harmless in mode, and degree, and object, as 
the avarice of the miser. Therefore God, that we may 
always have them, and ever learn to love their beauty, 
and yet more their truth, sends the beneficent winter 
that we may think about what we have lost, and welcome 
them when they come again with greater tenderness and 
love, with clearer eyes to see, and purer hearts to under- 
stand, the spirit that dwells in them. We cannot do 
witnout the ‘winter of our discontent/ Shakespeare 
surely saw that when he makes Titania say in ‘ A Mid- 
summer Night’s Dream,’ — 

* The human mortals want their winter here’— 
namely, to set things right ; and none of those editors 
who would alter the line seem to have been capable of 
understanding its import.” 

“ I think I understand you a little,” answered Wyn- 
nie. Then, changing her tone — “ I told you, papa, you 
would have an answer ready: didn’t I ! rt 


254 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ Yes, my child — but with this difference : I found the 
answer to meet my own necessities, not yours.” 

“ And so you had it ready for me when I wanted it* 

* Just so. That is the only certainty you have in re- 
gard to what you give away. No one who has not 
tasted it and found it good has a right to offer any 
spiritual dish to his neighbour.” 

Mr Percivale took no part in our conversation. The 
moment I had presented him to Mrs Walton and Con- 
nie, and he had paid his respects by a somewhat stately 
old-world obeisance, he merged the salutation into a 
farewell, and, either forgetting my offer of coffee, or 
having changed his mind, withdrew, a little to my dis- 
appointment, for, notwithstanding his lack of response 
where some things he said would have led me to expect 
it, I had begun to feel much interested in him. 

He was scarcely beyond hearing when Dora came up 
to me from her digging with an eager look on her sunny 
face. 

“ Hasn’t he got nice boots, papa 1 ” 

“ Indeed, my dear, I am unable to support you in that 
assertion, for I never saw his boots.” 

“ I did then,” returned the child ; “ and I never saw 
such nice boots.” 

“ I accept the statement willingly,” I replied, and we 
heard no more of the boots, for his name was now sub- 
stituted for his nickname. Nor did I see himself again 
for some days — not in fact till next Sunday — though why 
he should come to church at all was something of a 
puzzle to me, especially when I knew him better. 


CHAPTER XX 


THE BLACKSMITH. 

HE next day I set out after breakfast to fft* 
quire about a blacksmith. It was not every 
or any blacksmith that would do. I must 
not fix on the first to do my work because 
he was the first. There was one in the village, I soon 
learned 5 but I found him an ordinary man, who, I have 
nc doubt, could shoe a horse and avoid the quick, but 
from whom any greater delicacy of touch was not to be 
expected. Inquiring further, I heard of a young smith 
who had lately settled in a hamlet a couple of miles 
distant, but still within the parish. In the aftern"'.n I 
set out to find him. To my surprise, he was a pale-faced, 
thoughtful-looking man, with a huge frame, which ap- 
peared worn rather than naturally thin, and laige eyes that 
looked at the anvil as if it was the horizon of the world. 
He had got a horse-shoe in his tongs when I entered. 
Noth withstanding the file that glowed on the hearU, 



THE SEABOARD PARISH, 


*5<* 


and the sparks that flew like a nimbus in eruption from 
about his person, the place looked very dark to me 
entering from the glorious blaze of the almost noontide 
sun, and felt cool after the deep lane through which 1 
had come, and which had seemed a very reservoir of 
sunbeams. I could see the smith by the glow of his 
horse-shoe; but all between me and the shoe was dark. 

“ Good morning,” I said. “ It is a good thing to find 
a man by his work. I heard you half-a-mile off or so, 
and now I see you, but only by the glow of your work. 
It is a grand thing to work in fire.” 

He lifted his hammered hand to his forehead court- 
eously, and as lightly as if the hammer had been the 
butt-end o a whip. 

“ I don’t know if you would say the same i» you had 
to work at it in weather like this,” he answered. 

“ If I did not,” I returned, “ that would be the fault 
of my weakness, and would not affect the assertion I 
have just made, that it is a fine thing to work in fire.” 

“Well, you may be right,” he rejoined with a sigh, as, 
throwing the horse-shoe he had been fashioning from 
the tongs on the ground, he next let the hammer drop 
beside the anvil, and leaning against it, held his head for 
a moment between his hands, and regarded the floor. 
“It does not much matter to me,” he went on, “if I 
only get through my work and have done with it. No 
man shall say I shirked what I ’d got to do. And then 
when it’s over there won’t be a word to say age n me, 



He did not finish the sentence. And now I could seo 


THE BLACKSMITH. 


*57 


the sunlight lying in a somewhat dreary patch, if the 
word dreary can be truly used with respect to any mani 
festation of sunlight, on the dark clay floor. 

“ I hope you are not ill,” I said. 

He made no answer, but taking up his tongs caught 
with it from a beam one of a number of roughly finished 
horse-shoes which hung there, and put it on the fire to 
be fashioned to a certain fit. While he turned it in the 
fire, and blew the bellows, I stood regarding him. “ This 
man will do for my work,” I said to myself ; “ though I 
should not wonder from the look of him if it was the last 
piece of work he ever did under the New Jerusalem." 
1 he smith’s words broke in on my meditations. 

“ When I was a little boy,” he said, “ I once wanted 
to stay at home from school. I had, I believe, a little 
headache, but nothing worth minding. I told my mother 
that I had a headache, and she kept me, and I helped 
her at her spinning, which was what I liked best of any- 
thing. But in the afternoon the Methodist preacher 
came in to see my mother, and he asked me what was 
the matter with me, and my mother answered for me that 
I had a bad head, and he looked at me ; and as my head 
was quite well by this time, I could not help feeling 
guilty. And he saw my look, I suppose, sir, for I can’t 
account for what he said any other way, and he turned 
to me, and he said to me, solemn-like, ‘ Is your head 
bad enough to send you to the Lord Jesus to make you 
whole V I could not speak a word, partly from bash- 
fulness, I suppose, for I was but ten years old. So he 

followed it up, as they say : 4 Then you ought to be a.< 

B 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


258 


school,’ says he. I said nothing, because I couldn’t 
But never since then have I given in as long as I could 
stand. And I can stand now, and lift my hammer too,” 
he said, as he took the horse-shoe from the forge, laid it 
on the anvil, and again made a nimbus of coruscating 
iron. 

“ You are just the man I want,” I said. “ I ’ve got 
a job for you, down to Kilkhaven, as you say in these 
parts.” 

“What is it, sir? Something about the church? I 
should ha’ thought the church was all spick and span by 
this time.” 

“ I see you know who I am,” I said. 

“ Of course I do,” he answered. “ I don’t go to 
church myself, being brought up a Methodist ; but any- 
thing that happens in the parish is known the next day 
all over it.” 

“You won’t mind doing my job though you are a 
Methodist, will you?” I asked. 

“ Not I, sir. If I ’ve read right, it ’s the fault of the 
Church that we don’t pull all alongside. You turned us 
out, sir; we didn’t go out of ourselves. At least, if all they 
say is true, which I can’t be sure of you know, in this 
world.” 

“ You are quite right there though,” I answered. “ And 
in doing so, the Church had the worst of it — as all that 
judge and punish their neighbours have. But you have 
been the worse for it, too : all of which is to be laid to 
the charge of the Church. For there is not one clergy- 
man I know-mind, I say, that I know— tfho would 


l 


THE BLACKSMITH. 


*59 


have made such a cruel speech to a boy as that the 
Methodist parson made to you/* 

“ But it did me good, sir.” 

“Are you sure of that? I am not. Are you sure, first 
of all, it did not make you proud ? Are you sure it has 
not made you work beyond your strength — I don’t mean 
your strength of arm, for clearly that is all that could be 
wished, but of your chest, your lungs ? Is there not some 
danger of your leaving some one who is dependent on 
you too soon unprovided for ? Is there not some 
danger of your having worked as if God were a hard 
master ? — of your having worked fiercely, indignantly, as 
if he wronged you by not caring for you, not understand- 
ing you ? ” 

He returned me no answer, but hammered momen-tly 
on his anvil. Whether he felt what I meant, or was of 
fended at my remark, I could not then tell. I thought 
it best to conclude the interview with business. 

“ I have a delicate little job that wants nice handling, 
and I fancy you are just the man to do it to my mind,” 
I said. 

“What is it, sir?” he asked, in a friendly manner 
enough. 

“ If you will excuse me, I would rather show it to you 
than talk about it,” I returned. 

“ As you please, sir. When do you want me 1 *' 

u The first hour you can come.” 

“ To-morrow morning i ” 

“ If you feel inclined.” 

« For that matter, I ’d rather go to bed.” 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


Ho 


“Come to me instead : it's light work.* 
“ I will, sir — at ten o’clock.” 

“If you please.” 

so it was arranged. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

THE LIFE-BOA f. 

TIE next day rose glorious. Indeed* early as 
the sun rose, I saw him rise — saw him. from 
the down above the house, over the land to the 
east and north, ascend triumphant into his 
own light, which had prepared the way for him ; while 
the clouds that hung over the sea glowed out with a 
faint flush, as anticipating the hour when the west should 
clasp the declining glory in a richer though less dazz.ling 
splendour, and shine out the bride of the bridegroom 
east, wmcn behold each other from afar across the in- 
tervening world, and! never mingle but in the sight of the 
eyes. The clear pure light of the morning made me 
long for the truth in my heart, which alone could make 
me pure and clear as the morning, tune me up to the 
concert-pitch of the nature around me. And the wind 
that blew from the sunrise made me hope in the God 
who had first breathed into my nostrils the breath of life* 



262 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


that he would at length so fill with his breath, hia 
wind, his spirit, that I should think only his thoughts 
and live his life, finding therein my own life, only glori 
fied infinitely. 

After breakfast and prayers, I would go to the church 
to await the arrival of my new acquaintance the smith. 
In order to obtain entrance, I had, however, to go to 
the cottage of the sexton. This was not my first visit 
there, so that I may now venture to take my reader with 
me. To reach the door, I had to cross a hollow by a 
bridge, built, for the sake of the road, over what had 
once been the course of a rivulet from the heights above. 
Now it was a kind of little glen, or what would in Scot- 
land be called a den, I think, grown with grass and wild 
flowers and ferns, some of them rare and fine. The 
roof of the cottage came down to the road, and, until 
you came quite near, you could not but wonder where 
the body that supported this head could be. But you 
soon saw that the ground fell suddenly away, leaving a 
bank against which the cottage was built. Crossing a 
garden of the smallest, the principal flowers of which 
were the stonecrop on its walls, by a flag-paved path, you 
entered the building, and, to your surprise, found yourself, 
not in a little cottage kitchen, as you expected, but in a 
waste-looking space, that seemed to have forgotten the 
use for which it had been built. There was a sort of 
loft along one side of it, and it was heaped with inde- 
scribable lumber-looking stuff, with here and there a hint 
at possible machinery. The place had been a mill for 
grinding corn, and its wheel had been driven by th« 


THE LIFE-BOAT. 


263 


stream which had run for ages in the hollow of which I 
have already spoken. But when the canal came to be 
constructed, the stream had to be turned aside from its 
former course, and indeed was now employed upon oc- 
casion to feed the canal ; so that the mill of necessity 
had fallen into disuse and decay. Crossing this floor, 
you entered another door, and turning sharp to the left, 
went down a few steps of a ladder sort of stair, and after 
knocking your hat against a beam, emerged in the com- 
fortable quaint little cottage kitchen you had expected 
earlier. A cheerful though small fire burns in the grate 
— for even here the hearth-fire has vanished from the re- 
cords of cottage-life — and is pleasant here even in the 
height of summer, though it is counted needful only for 
cooking purposes. The ceiling, which consists only of 
the joists and the boards that floor the bedroom above, 
is so low, that necessity, if not politeness, would compel 
you to take off your already-bruised hat. Some of these 
joists, you will find, are made further useful by support- 
ing each a shelf, before which hangs a little curtain of 
printed cotton, concealing the few stores and postponed 
eatables of the house — forming, in fact, both store-room 
and larder of the family. On the walls hang several 
coloured prints, and within a deep glazed frame the 
figure of a ship in full dress, carved in rather high relief 
in sycamore. 

As I now entered, Mrs Coombes rose from a high- 
backed settle near the fire, and ba’de me good morning 
with a courtesy. 

44 What a lovely day it is, Mrs Coombes ! It is so 


264 ' 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


bright over the sea,” I said, going to the one little win- 
dow which looked out on the great Atlantic, “ that one 
almost expects a great merchant navy to come sailing 
into Kilkhaven— sunk to the water’s edge with siiks, and 
ivory, and spices, and apes, and peacocks, like the ships 
of Solomon that we read about — just as the sun gets up 
the noonstead.” 

Before I record her answer, I turn to my reader, who 
in the spirit accompanies me, and have a little talk with 
him. I always make it a rule to speak freely with the 
Iass as with the more educated of my friends. I never 
folk down to them, except I be expressly explaining 
something to them. The law of the world is as the law 
of the family. Those children grow much the faster 
who hear all that is going on in the house. Reaching 
ever above themselves, they arrive at an understanding 
at fifteen which, in the usual way of things, they would 
not reach before five-and-twenty or thirty ; and this in 
a natural way, and without any necessary priggishness, 
except such as may belong to their parents. Therefore 
I always spoke to the poor and uneducated, as to my 
own people, freely, not much caring whether I should be 
quite understood or not ; for I believed in influences not 
to be measured by the measure of the understanding. 

But what was the old woman’s answer? It was this : — 

u I know, sir. And when I was as young as you 
I was not so very young, my reader may well think — 
u I thought like that 'about the sea myself. Everything 
come from the sea. For my boy Willie he du bring me 
home the beautifullest parrot and the talkingest you cvci 



A LIFE-BOAT HIMSELF. 









































THE LIFE-BOAT. 


*65 


see, and the red shawl all worked over with flowers : I’ll 
show it to you some day, sir, when you have time. He 
made that ship you see in the frame there, sir, all with 
his own knife, out on a bit o’ wood that he got at the 
Marishes, as they calls it, sir — a bit of an island some- 
wheres in the great sea. But the parrot’s gone dead like 
the rest of them, sir. — Where am I? and what am I 
talking about V’ she added, looking down at her knitting 
as if she had dropped a stitch, or rather as if she had 
forgotten what she was making, and therefore what was 
to come next. 

“ You were telling me how you used to think of the 
sea ” 

“When I was as young as you. I remember, sir. 
Well, that lasted a long time — lasted till my third boy 
fell asleep in the wide water; for it du call it falling 
asleep, don’t it, sir 

“ The Bible certainly does,” I answered. 

“ It ’s the Bible I be meaning, of course,” she returned. 
“ Well, after that, but I don’t know what began it, only 
I did begin to think about the sea as something that 
took away things and didn’t bring them no more. And 
somehow or other she never look so blue after that, and 
she give me the shivers. But now, sir, she always looks 
to me like one o’ the shining ones that come to fetch the 
pilgrims. You’ve heard tell of the ‘ Pilgrim’s Progress,’ 
I daresay, sir, among the poor people ; for they du say it 
was written by a tinker, though there be a power o’ good 
things in it that I think the gentle folk would like if they 
knowed it* 


866 


THE SEABOMD PARISH. 


“ I do know the book — nearly as well as I know the 
Bible,” I answered; “and the shining ones are very 
beautiful in it I am glad you can think of the sea that 
way.” 

“ It ’s looking in at the window all day as I go about 
the house,” she answered, “and all night too when I’m 
asleep ; and if I hadn’t learned to think of it that way, it 
would have driven me mad, 1 du believe. I was forced 
to think that way about it, or not think at all. And that 
wouldn’t be easy, with the sound of it in your ears the 
last thing at night and the first thing in the morning.” 

“ The truth of things is indeed the only refuge from 
the look of things,” I replied. “ But now I want the key 
of the church, if you will trust me with it, for I have 
something to do there this morning ; and the key of the 
tower as well, if you please.” 

With her old smile, ripened only by age, she reached 
the ponderous keys from the nail where they hung, and 
gave them into my hand. I left her in the shadow of 
her dwelling, and stepped forth into the sunlight. The 
first thing I observed was the blacksmith waiting for me 
at the church door. 

Now that I saw him in the full light of day, and now 
that he wore his morning face upon which the blackness 
of labour had not yet gathered, I could see more plainly 
how far he was from well There was a flush on his thin 
cheek by which the less used exercise of walking re- 
vealed his inward weakness, and the light in his eyes had 
something of the far-country in them — “ the light that 
never was on sea or shore.” But his speech was cheer* 


THE LIFE-BOAT. 


267 


ful, for he had been walking in the light of this world, 
and that had done something to make the light within 
him shine a little more freely. 

“ How do you find yourself to-day?” I asked. 

“ Quite well, sir. I thank you,” he answered. “ A day 
like this does a man good. But,” he added, and his 
countenance fell, “the heart knoweth its own bitterness. 1 * 

“ It may know it too much,” I returned, “just because 
it refuses to let a stranger intermeddle therewith.” 

He made no reply. I turned the key in the great 
lock, and the iron-studded oak opened and let us into 
the solemn gloom. 

It did not require many minutes to make the man un- 
derstand what I wanted of him. 

“ We must begin at the bells and work down,” he said. 

So we went up into the tower, where, with the help of 
a candle I fetched for him from the cottage, he made a 
good many minute measurements; found that carpen- 
ter’s work was necessary for the adjustment of the ham- 
mers and cranks and the leading of the rods, undertook 
the management of the whole, and in the course of an 
hour and a half went home to do what had to be done 
before any fixing could be commenced, assuring me that 
he had no doubt of bringing the job to a satisfactory 
conclusion, although the force of the blow on the bell 
would doubtless have to be regulated afterwards by re- 
peated trials. 

“ In a fortnight, I hope you will be able to play a 
tune to the parish, sir,” he added as he took his leave. 

I resolved, if possible, to know more of the man, and 


*68 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


find out his trouble, if haply I might be able to give him 
any comfort, for I was all but certain that there was a 
deeper cause for his gloom than the state of his health. 

When he was gone I stood with the key of the church 
in my hand, and looked about me. Nature at least was 
in glorious health — sunshine in her eyes, light fantastic 
cloud-images passing through her brain, her breath com- 
ing and going in soft breezes perfumed with the scents 
of meadows and wild flowers, and her green robe shin- 
ing in the motions of her gladness. I turned to lock the 
church door, though in my heart I greatly disapproved 
of locking the doors of churches, and only did so now 
because it was not my church, and I had no business to 
force my opinions upon other customs. But when I 
turned I received a kind of questioning shock. There 
was the fallen world, as men call it, shining in glory and 
gladness, because God was there : here was the way into 
the lost Paradise, yea, the door into an infinitely higher 
Eden than that ever had or ever could have been, iron- 
clamped and riveted, gloomy and low-browed like the 
entrance to a sepulchre, and surrounded with the grim 
heads of grotesque monsters of the deep. What did 
it mean I Here was contrast enough to require har- 
monizing, or if that might not be, then accounting for. 
Perhaps it was enough to say that although God made 
both the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of grace, 
yet the symbol of the latter was the work of man, and 
might not altogether correspond to God’s idea of the 
matter. I turned away thoughtful, and went through the 
churchyard with my eye on the graves; 


THE LIFE-BOAT. 


a6s 


As I left the churchyard, still looking to tne earth, 
the sound of voices reached my ear. I looked up. 
There, down below me, at the foot of the high bank on 
which I stood, lay a gorgeous shining thing upon the 
bosom of the canal, full of men, and surrounded by men, 
women, and children, delighting in its beauty. I had 
never seen such a thing before, but I knew at once, as if 
by instinct, which of course it could not have been, that 
it was the life-boat. But in its gorgeous colours, red and 
white and green, it looked more like the galley that bore 
Cleopatra to Actium. Nor, floating so light on the top 
of the water, and broad in the beam withal, curved up- 
ward and ornamented at stern and stem, did it look at 
all like a creature formed to battle with the fierce ele- 
ments. A pleasure boat for floating between river banks 
it seemed, drawn by swans mayhap, and regarded in its 
course by fair eyes from green terrace-walks, or oriel 
windows of ancient houses on verdant lawns. Ten men 
sat on the thwarts, and one in the stern by the yet use- 
less rudder, while men and boys drew the showy thing 
by a rope downward to the lock-gates. The men in the 
boat wore blue jerseys, but you could see little of the 
colour for strange unshapely things that they wore above 
them, like an armour cut out of a row of organ pipes. 
They were their cork-jackets. For every man had to be 
made into a life-boat himself. I descended the bank, 
and stood on the edge of the canal as it drew near. 
Then I saw that every oar was loosely but firmly fastened 
to the rowlock, so that it could be dropped and caught 
again in a moment ; and that the gay sides of the un- 


270 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


wieldly looking creature were festooned with ropes from 
the gunwale, for the men to lay hold of when she 
capsized, for the earlier custom of fastening the men to 
their seats had been quite given up, because their weight 
under the water might prevent the boat from righting 
itself again, and the men could not come to the surface. 
Now they had a better chance in their freedom, though 
why they should not be loosely attached to the boat, I 
do not quite see. 

They towed the shining thing through the upper gate 
of the lock, and slowly she sank from my sight, and for 
some moments was no more to be seen, for I had re- 
mained standing where first she passed me. All at once 
there she was beyond the covert of the lock-head, abroad 
and free, fleeting from the strokes of ten swift oars over 
the still waters of the bay towards the waves that roared 
further out where the ground-swell was broken by the 
rise of the sandy coast. There was no vessel in danger 
now, as the talk of the spectators informed me ; it was 
only for exercise and show that they went out. It 
seemed all child’s play for a time ; but when they got 
among the broken waves, then it looked quite another 
thing. The motion of the waters laid hold upon her, 
and soon tossed her fearfully, now revealing the whole of 
her capacity on the near side of one of their slopes, now 
hiding her whole bulk in one of their hollows beyond. 
She, careless as a child in the troubles of the vorld, 
floated about amongst them with what appeared too much 
buoyancy for the promise of a safe return. Again and 
again she was driven from her course towards the low 


THE LIFE*BOAT. 


271 


rocks on the other side of the bay, and again and again 
returned to disport herself, like a sea-animal, as it 
seemed, upon the backs of the wild, rolling and bursting 
billows. 

“ Can she go no further ! ” I asked of the captain ol 
the coastguard, whom I found standing by my side. 

" Not without some danger,” he answered. 

“ What, then, ipust it be in a storm! ” I remarked. 

* Then of course,” he returned, “ they must take their 
chance. But there is no good in running risks for 
nothing. That swell is quite enough for exercise.” 

“ But is it enough to accustom them to face the 
danger that will come 1 ” I asked. 

“ With danger comes courage,” said the old sailor. 

* Were you ever afraid ? ” 

“ No, sir. I don’t think I ever was afraid. Yes, 1 
believe I was once for one moment, no more, when I 
fell from the maintop-gallant yard, and felt myself falling. 
But it was soon over, for I only fell into the maintop. I 
was expecting the smash on deck when I was brought 
up there. But,” he resumed, “ I don’t care much about 
the life-boat My rockets are worth a good deal more, 
as you may see, sir, before the winter is over ; for seldom 
does a winter pass without at least two or three wrecks 
close by here on this coast. The full force of the At- 
lantic breaks here, sir. I have seen a life-boat — not that 
one — she's done nothing yet — pitched stern over stem; 
not capsized, you know, sir, in the ordinary way, but 
struck by a wave behind while she was just hanging in 
the balance on the knife-edge of a wave, and flung $ 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


27* 


somerset as I say, stern over stem, and four of her men 
lost.” 

While we spoke I saw on the pier-head the tall 
flgure of the painter looking earnestly at the boat. I 
thought he Was regarding it chiefly from an artistic point 
of view, but I became aware before long that that would 
not have been consistent with the character of Charles 
Percivale. He had been, I learned afterwards, a crack 
oarsman at Oxford, and had belonged to the University 
boat, so that he had some almost class-sympathy with 
the doings of the crew. 

In a little while the boat sped swiftly back, entered 
the lock, was lifted above the level of the storm-heaved 
ocean, and floated up the smooth canal calmly as if she 
had never known what trouble was. Away up to the 
pretty little Tudor-fashioned house in which she lay — 
one could almost fancy dreaming of storms to come— 
she went, as softly as if moved only by her “ own sweet 
will,” in the calm consolation for her imprisonment of 
having tried her strength, and found therein good hopa 
of success for the time when she should rush to he 
rescue of men from that to which, as a monster that 
begets monsters, she a watching Perseis, lay ready to 
offer battle. The poor little boat lying in her little 
house watching the ocean, was something significant in 
my eyes, and not less so after what came in the course 
of changing seasons and gathered storms. 

All this time I had the keys in my hand, and now 
went back to the cottage to restore them to their place 
upon the walk When I entered, there was a young 


THE LIFE-BOAT. 


*73 


woman of a sweet interesting countenance talking to 
Mrs Coombes. Now as it happened, I had never yet 
seen the daughter who lived with her, and thought this 
was she. 

“ I ’ve found your daughter at last then ? ” I said ap- 
proaching them. 

“ Not yet, sir. She goes out to work, and her hands 
be pretty full at present. But this be almost my daughter, 
sir,” she added. “ This is my next daughter, Mary Tre- 
hern, from the south. She ’s got a place near by, to be 
near her mother that is to be, that's me.” 

Mary was hanging her head and blushing, as the old 
woman spoke. 

“ I understand,” I said. u And when are you going 
to get your new mother, Mary ? Soon, I hope.*’ 

But she gave me no reply — only hung her head lower 
and blushed deeper. 

Mrs Coombes spoke for her, 

“ She *s shy, you see, sir. But if she was to speak her 
mind, she would ask you whether you wouldn’t marry 
her and Willie when he comes home from his next 
voyage.” 

Mary’s hands were trembling now, and she turned half 
away. 

“ With all my heart,” I said. 

The girl tried to turn towards me, but could not. I 
looked at her face a little more closely. Through all its 
tremor, there was a look of constancy that greatly pleased 
me. I tried to make her speak. 

“ When do you expect Willie home 1 ” I said. 


*74 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


She made a little gasp and murmur, but no articulate 
words came. 

“ Don’t be frightened, Mary,” said her mother, as I 
found she always called her. “ The gentleman won’t be 
sharp with you.’* 

She lifted a pair of soft brown eyes with one glance 
and a smile, and then sank them again. 

“ He ’ll be home in about a month, we think,” answered 
the mother. “ She *s a good ship he ’s aboard of, and 
makes good voyages.” 

“ It is time to think about the banns, then,” I said. 

“ If you please, sir,” said the mother. 

“Just come to me about it, and I will attend to it— 
when you think proper.” 

I thought I could hear a murmured “Thank you, 
sir,” from the girl, but I could not be certain that she 
spoke. I shook hands with them, and went for a stroll 
on the other side of the bay. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


MR. PERCIVALB. 



HEN I reached home I found that Connie was 
already on her watch-tower. For while I 
was away, they had carried her out that she 
might see the life-boat. I followed her, and 


found the whole family about her couch, and with them 
Mr Percivale ; who was showing her some sketches that 
he had made in the neighbourhood. Connie knew 
nothing of drawing ; but she seemed to me always to 
catch the feeling of a thing. Her remarks therefore 
were generally worth listening to, and Mr Percivale was 
evidently interested in them. Wynnie stood behind 
Connie, looking over her shoulder at the drawing in her 
hand. 

41 How do you get that shade of green V’ I heard her 
ask as I came up. 

And then Mr Percivale proceeded to tell her ; from 


276 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


which beginning they went on to other things, till Mr 
Percivale said — 

“ But it is hardly fair, Miss Walton, to criticize my 
work while you keep your own under cover.” 

“ I wasn’t criticizing, Mr Percivale : was I, Connie ? ” 

“ I didn’t hear her make a single remark, Mr Perci- 
vale,” said Connie, taking her sister’s side. 

To my surprise they were talking away with the young 
man as if they had known him for years, and my wife 
was seated at the foot of the couch, apparently taking no 
exception to the suddenness of the intimacy. I am 
afraid, when I think of it, that a good many springs 
would be missing from the world’s history if they might 
not flow till the papas gave their wise consideration to 
everything about the course they were to take. 

u I think, though,” added Connie, “ it is only fair that 
Mr Percivale should see your work, Wynnie.” 

“ Then I will fetch my portfolio, if Mr Percivale will 
promise to remember that I have no opinion of it. At 
the same time, if I could do what I wanted to do, I 
think I should not be ashamed of showing my drawings 
even to him.” 

And now I was surprised to find how like grown 
women my daughters could talk. To me they always 
spoke like the children they were ; but when I heard 
them now, it seemed as if they had started all at once 
into ladies experienced in the ways of society. There 
they were chatting lightly, airily, and yet decidedly, a 
slight tone of badinage interwoven, with a young man of 
grace and dignity, whom they had only seen once before. 


MR PERCIVALE. 


*77 


and who had advanced no farther, with Connie at least, 
than a stately bow. They had, however, been a whole 
hour together before I arrived, and their mother had 
been with them all the while., which gives great courage 
to good girls, while, I am told, it shuts the mouths of those 
who are sly. But then it must be remembered that there are 
as great differences in mothers as in girls. And besides, 
I believe wise girls have an instinct about men that ail 
the experience of other men cannot overtake. But yet 
again, there are many girls foolish enough to mistake a 
mere impulse for instinct, and vanity for insight. 

As Wynnie spoke, she turned and went back to the 
house to fetch some of her work. Now, had she been 
going a message for me, she would have gone like the 
wind ; but on this occasion she stepped along in a stately 
manner, far from devoid of grace, but equally free from 
frolic or eagerness. And I could not help noting as 
well that Mr Pcrcivale’s eyes followed her. What I felt 
or fancied is of no consequence to anybody. I do not 
think, even if I were writing an autobiography, I should 
be forced to tell all about myself. But an autobiography 
is further from my fancy, however much I may have 
trenched upon its limits, than any other form of literature 
with which I am acquainted. 

She was not long in returning, however, though she 
came back with the same dignified motion. 

“ There is nothing really worth either showing or con- 
cealing,” she said to Mr Percivale, as she handed him 
the portfolio, to help himself, as it were. She then 
turned away, as if a little feeling of shyness had come 


*78 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


over her, and began to look for something to do about 
Connie. I could see that, although she had hitherto 
been almost indifferent about the merit of her drawings, 
she had a new-born wish that they might not appear 
altogether contemptible in the eyes of Mr Percivale, 
And I saw, too, that Connie’s wide eyes were taking in 
everything. It was wonderful how Connie’s deprivations 
had made her keen in observing. Now she hastened to 
her sister’s rescue even from such a slight inconvenience 
as the shadow of embarrassment in which she found her- 
self — perhaps from having seen some unusual expression 
in my face, of which I was unconscious, though conscious 
enough of what might have occasioned such. 

“ Give me you hand, Wynnie,” said Connie, “ and help 
me to move one inch further on my side. I may move 
just that much on my side, mayn’t I, papa? ” 

“ I think you had better not, my dear, if you can do 
without it,” I answered ; for the doctor’s injunctions had 
been strong. 

“ Very well, papa ; but I feel as if it would do me 
good.” 

“ Mr Turner will be here next week, you know; and 
you must try to stick to his rules till he comes to see you. 
Perhaps he will let you relax a little.” 

Connie smiled very sweetly and lay still, while Wynnie 
stood holding her hand. 

Meantime Mr Percivale, having received the drawings, 
had walked away with them towards what they called the 
storm tower — a little building standing square to the 
points of the compass, from little windows in which the 


MR PERCIVALK. 


*79 


coastguard could see with their telescopes along the coast 
on both sides and far out to sea. This tower stood on 
the very edge of the cliff, but behind it there was a steep 
descent, to reach which apparently he went round the 
tower and disappeared. He evidently wanted to make 
a leisurely examination of the drawings — somewhat for- 
midable for Wynnie, I thought. At the same time, it 
impressed me favourably with regard to the young man 
that he was not inclined to pay a set of stupid and untrue 
compliments the instant the portfolio was opened, but, 
on the contrary, in order to speak what was real about 
them, would take the trouble to make himself in some 
adequate measure acquainted with them. I therefore, to 
Wynnie’s relief, I fear, strolled after him, seeing no harm 
in taking a peep at his person v/hile he was taking a 
peep at my daughter’s mind. I went round the tower 
to the other side, and there saw him at a little dis- 
tance below me, but further out on a great rock that 
overhung the sea, connected with the cliff by a long 
narrow isthmus, a few yards lower than the cliff itself, 
only just broad enough to admit of a footpath along its 
top, and on one side going sheer down with a smooth 
hard rock-face to the sands below. The other side was 
less steep, and had some grass upon it But the path 
was too narrow”, and the precipice too steep, for me to 
trust my head with the business of guiding my feet along 
it. So I stood and saw him from the mainland — saw 
his head at least bent over the drawings ; saw how slowly 
he turned from one to the other ; saw how, after having 
gone over them once, he turned to the beginning and 


28 o 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


went over them again, even more slowly than before ; 
saw how he turned the third time to the first. Then, 
getting tired, I went back to the group on the down ; 
caught sight of Charlie and Harry turning heels ov?r 
head down the slope toward the house ; found that my 
wife had gone home — in fact, that only Connie and 
Wynnie were left. The sun had disappeared under a 
cloud, and the sea had turned a little slaty ; the yellow 
flowers in the short down-grass no longer caught the eye 
with their gold, and the wind that bent their tops had 
just the suspicion of an edge in it. And Wynnie’s face 
looked a little cloudy too, I thought, and I feared that 
it was my fault. I fancied there was just a tinge of 
beseeching in Connie’s eye as I looked at her, thinking 
there might be danger for her in the sunlessness of the 
wind. But I do not knevr that all this, even the cloud- 
ing of the sun, may not have come out of my own mind, 
the result of my not being quite satisfied with myself be- 
cause of the mood I had been in. My feeling had altered 
considerably in the meantime. 

“ Run, Wynnie, and ask Mr Percivale, with my com 
pliments, to come and lunch with us,” I said — more -to 
let her see I was not displeased, however I might have 
looked, than for any other reason. She went — sedately 
as before. 

Almost as soon as she was gone, I saw that I had put 
her in a difficulty. For I had discovered, very soon 
after coming into these parts, that her head was no more 
steady than my own upon high places, for she had never 
been used to such in our own level country, except, in- 


MR PERCIVALE. 


281 


deed, on the stair that led down to the old quarry and 
the well, where, I can remember now, she always laid 
her hand on the balustrade with some degree of tremor, 
although she had been in the way of going up and down 
from childhood. But if she could not cross that narrow 
and really dangerous isthmus, still less could she call to 
a man she had never seen but once, across the interven- 
ing chasm. I therefore set off after her, leaving Connie 
lying there in loneliness, between the sea and the sky. But 
when I got to the other side of the little tower, instead 
of finding her standing hesitating on the brink of action, 
there she was on the rock beyond. Mr Percivale had 
risen, and was evidently giving an answer to my invita- 
tion ; at least, the next moment she turned to come back, 
and he followed. I stood trembling almost to see her 
cross the knife-back of that ledge. If I had not been 
almost fascinated, I should have turned and left them to 
come together, lest the evil fancy should cross her mind 
that I was watching them, for it was one thing to watch 
him with her drawings, and quite another to watch him 
with herself But I stood and stared as she crossed. 
In the middle of the path, however — up to which point 
she had been walking with perfect steadiness and com- 
posure — she lifted her eyes — by what influence I cannot 
tell — saw me, looked as if she saw a ghost, half-lifted 
her arms, swayed as if she would fall, and, indeed, was 
falling over the precipice, when Percivale, who was close 
behind her, caught her in his arms, almost too late for 
both of them. So nearly down was she already, that her 
weight bent him over the rocky side till it seemed aa 


282 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


if he must yield, or his body snap. For he bent from 
the waist, and looked as if his feet only kept a hold 
on the ground. It was all over in a moment, but in that 
moment it made a sun-picture on my brain, which re- 
turns ever and again, with such vivid agony that I cannot 
hope to get rid of it till I get rid of the brain itself in 
which lies the impress. In another moment they were 
at my side — she with a wan, terrified smile, he in a ruddy 
alarm. I was unable to speak, and could only, with 
trembling steps, lead the way from the dreadful spot 
I reproached myself afterwards for my want of faith in 
God; but I had not had time to correct myself yet 
Without a word on their side either, they followed me. 
Before w r e reached Connie, I recovered myself sufficiently 
to say, “Not a word to Connie,' ” and they understood 
me. I told Wynnie to run to the house, and send 
Walter to help me to carry Connie home. She went, 
and, until Walter came, I talked to Mr Percivale as if 
nothing had happened. And what made me feel yet 
more friendly towards him was, that he did not do as 
some young men wishing to ingratiate themselves would 
have done : he did not offer to help me to carry Connie 
home, I saw that the offer rose in his mind, and that 
he repressed it. He understood that I must consider 
such a permission as a privilege not to be accorded to 
the acquaintance ot a day ; that I must know him better 
before I could allow the weight of my child to rest on 
his strength. I was even grateful to him for this 
knowledg i of human nature. But he responded cor- 
dially to my invitation to lunch with us, and walked 


MR PERCIVALE. 


283 


by my side as Walter and I bore the precious burden 
home 

During our meal, he made himself quite agreeable , 
talked well on the topics of the day, not altogether as a 
man who had made up his mind, but not the less, rather 
the more, as a man who had thought about them, and 
one who did not find it so easy to come to a conclusion 
as most people do — or possibly as not feeling the ne- 
cessity ot coming to a conclusion, and therefore prefer- 
ring to allow the conclusion to grow instead of construct- 
ing one for immediate use. This I rather liked than 
otherwise. His behaviour, I need hardly say, after what 
I have told of him already, was entirely that of a gentle- 
man ; and his education was good. But what I did not 
like was, that as often as the conversation made a bend 
in the direction of religious matters, he was sure to bend 
it away in some other direction as soon as ever he laid 
his next hold upon it. This, however, might have 
various reasons to account for it, and I would wait. 

After lunch, as we rose from the table, he took Wyn- 
nie’s portfolio from the side-table where he had laid it, 
and with no more than a bow and thanks returned it 
to her. She, I thought, looked a little disappointed, 
though she said as lightly as she could — 

“ I am afraid you have not found anything worthy of 
criticism in my poor attempts, Mr Percivale?” 

“ On the contrary, I shall be most happy to tell you 
what I think of them if you would like to hear the im- 
pression they have made upon me.” he replied, holding 
out hip hand to take the portfolio again. 


284 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


' “ I shall be greatly obliged to you,” she said, return- 
ing it, “ for I have had no one to help me since I left 
school, except a book called * Modern Painters,' which 
I think has the most beautiful things in it I ever read, 
but which I lay down every now and then with a kind 
of despair, as if I never could do anything worth doing. 
How long the next volume is in coming ! Do you know 
the author, Mr Percivale 1 ” 

“ I wish I did. He has given me much help. I do 
not say I can agree with everything he writes ; but when 
I do not, I have such a respect for him that I always 
feel as if he must be right whether he seems to 
me to be right or not. And if he is severe, it 
is with the severity of love that will speak only the 
truth.” 

This last speech fell on my ear like the tone of a 
church bell. “ That will do, my friend,” thought I. But 
I said nothing to interrupt. 

By this time he had laid the portfolio open on the 
side-table, and placed a chair in front of it for my 
daughter. Then seating himself by her side, but with- 
out the least approach to familiarity, he began to talk to 
her about her drawings, praising, in general, the feeling, 
but finding fault with the want of nicety in the execution 
— at least so it appeared to me from what I could under- 
stand of the conversation. 

“ But,” said my daughter, “it seems to me that if you 
get the feeling right, that is the main thing.” 

“ No doubt,” returned Mr Percivale ; “ so much the 
main thing that any imperfection or coarseness or urn 


MR PERCIVALE. 


285 


truth which interferes with it becomes of the greatest 
consequence.” 

“ But can it really interfere with the feeling 1 ” 

“ Perhaps not with most people, simply because most 
people observe so badly that their recollections of nature 
are all blurred and blotted and indistinct, and therefore 
the imperfections we are speaking of do not affect them. 
But with the more cultivated it is otherwise. It is for 
them you ought to work, for you do not thereby lose the 
others. Besides, the feeling is always intensified by the 
finish, for that belongs to the feeling too, and must, 1 
should think, have some influence even where it is not 
noted.” 

“ But is it not a hopeless thing to attempt the finish 
of nature 1 ” 

“Not at all; to the degree, that is, in which you can 
represent anything else of nature. But in this drawing 
now you have no representative of, nothing to hint at or 
recall the feeling of the exquisiteness of nature's finish. 
Why should you not at least have drawn a true horizon- 
line there ? Has the absolute truth of the meeting oi 
sea and sky nothing to do with the feeling which such a 
landscape produces ? I should have thought you would 
have learned that, if anything, from Mr Ruskin.” 

Mr Percivale spoke earnestly. Wynnie, either from 
disappointment or despair, probably from a mixture of 
both, apparently fancied that, or rather felt as if, he was 
scolding her, and got cross. This was anything but 
dignified, especially with a stranger, and one who was 
doing his best to help her. And yet somehow, I must 


*S6 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


with shame confess, I was not altogether sorry to see it. 
In fact, my reader, I must just uncover my sin, and say 
that I felt a little jealous of Mr Percivale. The negative 
reason was that I had not yet learned to love him. The 
only cure for jealousy is love. But I was ashamed too 
of Wynnie’s behaving so childishly. Her face flushed, 
the tears came in her eyes, and she rose, saying with a 
little choke in her voice — 

“ I see it *s no use trying. I won’t intrude any more 
into things I am incapable of. I am much obliged to 
you, Mr Percivale, for showing me how presumptuous I 
have been.” 

The painter rose as she rose, looking greatly con- 
cerned. But he did not attempt to answer her. Indeed 
she gave him no time. He could only spring after her 
to open the door for her. A more than respectful bow 
as she left the room was his only adieu. But when he 
turned his face again towards me, it expressed even a 
degree of consternation. 

“I fear,” he said, approaching me with an almost 
military step, much at variance with the shadow upon 
his countenance, “ I fear I have been rude to Miss 
Walton, but nothing was farther ” 

“You mistake entirely, Mr Percivale. I heard all you 
were saying, and you were not in the least rude. On the 
contrary, I consider you were very kind to take the 
trouble with her you did. Allow me to make the apology 
for my daughter which I am sure she will wish made 
when she recovers from the disappointment of finding 
more obstacles in the way of her favourite pursuit than 


MR PERCIVALE. 


28 ; 


she had previously supposed. She is only too ready to 
lose heart, and she paid too little attention to your ap- 
probation and too much, in proportion, I mean, to your 
- — criticism. She felt discouraged and lost her temper, 
but more with herself and her poor attempts, I venture 
to assure you, than with your remarks upon them. She 
is too much given to despising her own efforts.” 

“ But I must have been to blame if I caused any such 
feeling with regard to those drawings, for I assure you 
they contain great promise.” 

“ I am glad you think so. That I should myself be 
of the same opinion can be of no consequence.” 

“ Miss Walton at least sees what ought to be repre- 
sented. All she needs is greater severity in the quality 
of representation. And that would have grown without 
any remark from onlookers. Only a friendly criticism is 
sometimes a great help. It opens the eyes a little 
sooner than they would have opened of themselves. 
And time,”' he added, with a half-sigh and with an 
appeal in his tone, as if he would justify himself to my 
conscience, “ is half the battle in this world. It is over 
so soon.” 

“No sooner than it ought to be,” I rejoined. 

“ So it may appear to you,” he returned ; “ for you, I 
presume to conjecture, have worked hard and done much. 
I may or may not have worked hard — sometimes I think 
I have, sometimes I think I have not — but I certainly 
have done little. Here I am nearly thirty, and have 
made no mark on the world yet.” 

« I don't know that that is of so much conseQuence," 


288 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


I said. “ I have never hoped for more than to rub out 
a few of the marks already made.” 

“ Perhaps you are right,” he returned. “ Every man 
has something he can do, and more, I suppose, that he 
can’t do. But I have no right to turn a visit into a visit- 
ation. Will you please tell Miss Walton that I am very 
sorry I presumed on the privileges of a drawing-master, 
and gave her pain. It was so far from my intention that 
it will be a lesson to me for the future.” 

With these words he took his leave, and I could not 
help being greatly pleased both with them and with 
his bearing. He was clearly anything but a comma* 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 

EN Wynnie appeared at dinner she looked 
ashamed of herself, and her face betrayed 
that she had been crying. But I said no- 
thing, for I had confidence that all she 
needed was time to come to herself, that the voice that 
speaks louder than any thunder might make its stillness 
heard. And when I came home from my walk the next 
morning I found Mr Percivale once more in the group 
about Connie, and evidently on the best possible terms 
with all. The same afternoon Wynnie went out sketch- 
ing with Dora. I had no doubt that she had made some 
sort of apology to Mr Percivale ; but I did not make 
the slightest attempt to discover what had passed be- 
tween them, for though it is of all things desirable that 
children should be quite open with their parents, I was 
most anxious to lay upon them no burden of obligation. 

T 



k 


290 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


For such burden lies against the door of utterance, 
and makes it the more difficult to open. It paralyses 
the speech of the soul. What I desired was, that they 
should trust me so that faith should overcome all dif- 
ficulty that might lie in the way of their being open with 
me. That end is not to be gained by any urging of ad- 
monition. Against such, growing years at least, if no- 
thing else, will bring a strong reaction. Nor even, if so 
gained, would the gain be at all of the right sort. The 
openness would not be faith. Besides, a parent must 
respect the spiritual person of his child, and approach it 
with reverence, for that too looks the Father in the face, 
and has an audience with him into which no earthly 
parent can enter even if he dared to desire it. There- 
fore I trusted my child. And when I saw that she 
looked at me a little shyly when we next met, I only 
sought to show her the more tenderness and confidence, 
telling her all about my plans with the bells, and my 
talks with the smith and Mrs Coombes. She listened 
with just such interest as I had always been accustomed 
to see in her, asking such questions, and making such 
remarks as I might have expected, but I still felt that 
there was the thread of a little uneasiness through the 
web of our intercourse, — such a thread of a false colour 
as one may sometimes find wandering through the laboui 
of the loom, and seek with pains to draw from the woven 
stuff. But it was for Wynnie to take it out, not for me. 
And she did not leave it long. For as she bade me. 
good night in my study, she said suddenly, yet with 
hesitating openness. 


THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 


291 


"Papa, I told Mr Percivale that I was sorry I had 
behaved so badly about the drawings.” 

“ You did right, my child,” I replied. At the same 
moment a pang of anxiety passed through me lest undei 
the influence of her repentance she should have said 
anything more than becoming. But I banished the 
doubt instantly as faithlessness in the womanly instincts 
of my child. For we men are always so ready and 
anxious to keep women right, like the wretched creature, 
Laertes, in Hamlet , who reads his sister such a lesson on 
,\er maidenly duties, but declines almost with contempt 
to listen to a word from her as to any co-relative obliga- 
tion on his side ! 

And here I may remark in regard to one of the vexed 
questions of the day- -the rights of women — that what 
women demand it is not for men to withhold. It is not 
cheir business to lay down the law for women. That 
women must lay down for themselves. I confess that, 
although I must herein seem to many of my readers old- 
fashioned and conservative, I should not like to see any 
woman I cared much for either in parliament or in an 
anatomical class-room ; but on the other hand I feel 
that women must be left free to settle that matter. If it 
is not good, good women will find it out and recoil from, 
it If it is good, then God give them good speed. One 
thing they have a right to — afar wider and more valuable 
education than they have been in the way of receiving. 
When the mothers are well taught the generations will 
grow in knowledge at a iourlold rate. But still the 
teaching of life is better than al' the schools, and com- 


•92 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


mon-sense than all learning. This common-sense is a 
rare gift, scantier in none than in those who lay claim to 
it on the ground of following commonplace, worldly, 
and prudential maxims. But I must return to my 
Wynnie. 

“ And what did Mr Percivale say ? ” I resumed, for 
she was silent. 

“ He took the blame all on himself, papa.* 

“ Like a gentleman,” I said. 

“ But I could not leave it so, you know, papa, becausa 
that was not the truth.” 

« Well?” 

u I told him that I had lost my temper from disap- 
pointment ; that I had thought I did not care for my draw 
ings because I was so far from satisfied with them, but 
when he made me feel that they were worth nothing, then 
I found from the vexation I felt that I had cared for 
them. But I do think, papa, I was more ashamed of 
having shown them, and vexed with myself, than cross 
with him. But I was very silly.” 

“ Well, and what did he say ?” 

“ He began to praise them then. But you know 1 
could not take much of that, for what could he do?” 

“ You might give him credit for a little honesty, at 
•east.” 

“ Yes ; but things may be true in a way, you know, 
and not mean much.’* 

“ lie seems to have succeeded in reconciling you to 
the prosecution of your efforts, however ; for I saw you 
go out with your sketching apparatus this afternoon.” 


THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 


*93 


“ Yes,” she answered, shyly. “ He was so kind, that 
somehow I got heart to try again. He’s very nicefc 
isn’t he ?” 

My answer was not quite ready. 

w Don’t you like him, papa V* 

“ Well — I like him — yes. But we must not be in haste 
with our judgments, you know. I have had very little 
opportunity of seeing into him. There is much in him 
that I like, but ” 

“ But what, please, papa ?” 

u To tell the truth then, Wynr.ie, for I can speak my 
mind to you, my child, there is a certain shyness of ap- 
proaching the subject of religion; so that I have my 
fears lest he should belong to any of these new schools 
of a fragmentary philosophy which acknowledge no source 
of truth but the testimony of the senses and the deduc- 
tions made therefrom by the intellect.” 

“ But is not that a hasty conclusion, papa V 

“ That is a hasty question, my dear. I have come to 
no conclusion. I was only speaking confidentially about 
my fears.” 

“ Perhaps, papa, it 's only that he ’s not sure enough, 
and is afraid of appearing to profess more than he be- 
lieves. I’m sure, if that’s it, I have the greatest sym- 
pathy with him.” 

I looked at her, and saw the tears gathering fast in her 
eyes. 

“ Pray to God on the chance of his hearing you, my 
darling, and go to sleep,” I said. “ I will not think hardly 
of you because you cannot be so sure as I am. How 


2Q4 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


could you be? You have not had my experience. Per- 
haps you are right about Mr Percivale too. But il 
would be an awkward thing to get intimate with him, you 
know, and then find out that we did not like him after 
all. You couldn’t like a man much, could you, who did 
not believe in anything greater than himself, anything 
marvellous, grand, beyond our understanding — who 
thought that he had come out of the dirt and was going 
back to the dirt?” 

“ I could, papa, if he tried to do his duty notwith- 
standing — for I am sure I couldn’t I should cry myself 
to death.” 

“You are right, my child. I should honour him too. 
But I should be very sorry for him. For he would be 
so disappointed in himself.” 

I do not know whether this was the best answer to 
make, but I had little time to think. 

u But you don’t know that he ’s like that” 

“ I do not, my dear. And more, I will not associate 
the idea with him till I know for certain. We will leave 
it to ignorant old ladies who lay claim to an instinct for 
theology to jump at conclusions, and reserve ours — as 
even such a man as we have been supposing might well 
teach us — till we have sufficient facts from which to 
draw them. Now go to bed, my child. 

“ Good-night then, dear papa,” she said, and left me 
with a kiss. 

I was not altogether comfortable after this conversa- 
tion. I had tried to be fair to the young man both in 
word and thought, but I couid not relish the idea of my 


THE SHADOW OP DEATH. 


29£ 


daughter falling in love with him, which looked likely 
enough, before I knew more about him, and found that 
more good and hope-giving. There was but one rational 
thing left to do, and that was to cast my care on him 
that careth for us — on the Father who loved my child 
more than even I could love her — and loved the young 
man too, and regarded my anxiety, and would take its 
cause upon himself. After I had lifted up my heart to 
him I was at ease, read a canto of Dante’s Paradise, 
and then went to bed. The prematurity of a conver- 
sation with my wife, in which I found that she was 
very favourably impressed with Mr Percivale, must be 
pardoned to the forecasting hearts of fathers and 
mothers. 

As I went out for my walk the next morning, I caught 
sight of the sexton, with whom as yet I had had but little 
communication, busily trimming some of the newer graves 
in the churchyard. I turned in through the nearer gate, 
which was fashioned like a lychgate, with seats on the 
sides and a stone table in the centre, but had no roof. 
The one on the other side of the church was roofed, but 
probably they had found that here no roof could resist 
the sea-blasts in winter. The top of the wall where the 
roof should have rested, was simply covered with flat 
slates to protect it from the rain. 

** Good morning, Coombes,” I said. 

He turned up a wizened, humorous, old face, the very 
type of a gravedigger’s, and with one hand leaning on 
the edge of the green mound, upon which he had been 
cropping with a pair of shears the too long and too thin 


296 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


grass, touched his cap with the other, and bade me a 
cheerful good morning in return. 

" You ’re making things tidy,” I said. 

" It take time to make them all comfortable, you see, 
sir,” he returned, taking up his shears again, and clipping 
away at the top and sides of the mound. 

" You mean the dead, Coombes?” 

" Yes, sir ; to be sure, sir.” 

" You don’t think it makes much difference to their 
comfort, do you, whether the grass is one length or 
another upon their graves?” 

“ Well no, sir. I don’t suppose it makes much differ- 
ence to them. But it look more comfortable, you know. 
And I like things to look comfortable. Don’t you, sir ? ” 

"To be sure I do, Coombes. And you are quite 
right. The resting-place of the body, although the 
person it belonged to be far away, should be respected.” 

"That’s what I think, though I don’t get no credit 
for it. I du believe the people hereabouts thinks me 
only a single hair better than a Jack Ketch. But I ’m 
sure I do my best to make the poor things comfoit- 
able.” 

He seemed unable to rid his mind of the idea that 
the comfort of the departed was dependent upon his 
ministrations. 

" The trouble I have with them sometimes ! There *s 
now this same one as lies here, old Jonathan Giles. He 
have the gout so bad I and just as I come within a couple 
o’ inches o’ the right depth, out come the edge of a great 
•tone in the near corner at the foot of the bed. Thinks 


THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 


*97 


I» He 'll never lie comfortable with that same under hts 
gouty toe. But the trouble I had to get out that stone \ 
I du assure you, sir, it took me nigh half the day. — But 
this be one of the nicest places to lie in all up and down 
the coast — a nice gravelly soil, you see, sir; dry, and 
warm, and comfortable. Them poor things as comes out 
of the sea must quite enjoy the change, sir.” 

There was something grotesque in the man's persist* 
ence in regarding the objects of his interest from this 
point of view. It was a curious way for the humanity 
that was in him to find expression ; but I did not like to 
let him go on thus. It was so much opposed to all that 
I believed and felt about the change from this world to 
the next ! 

“ But, Coombes,” I said, “ why will you go on talking 
as if it made an atom of difference to the dead bodies 
where they were buried ? They care no more about it 
than your old coat would care where it was thrown after 
you had done with it.” 

He turned and regarded his coat where it hung beside 
him on the headstone of the same grave at which he was 
working, shook his head with a smile that seemed to hint 
a doubt whether the said old coat would be altogether 
to indifferent to its treatment when it was past use as I 
had implied. Then he turned again to his work, and 
after a moment’s silence began to approach me from 
another side. 1 confess he had the better of me before 
I was aware of what he was about. 

“The church of Boscastle stands high on the cliil 
You’ve been to Boscastle, sir I” 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


198 


I told him I had not yet, but hoped to go before the 
summer was over. 

“Ah, you should see Boscastle, sir. It's a wonderful 
place. That ’s where I was born, sir. When I was a by 
that church was haunted, sir. It’s a damp place, and 
the wind in it awful. I du believe it stand higher than 
any church in the country, and have got more wind in it 
of a stormy night than any church whatsomever. Well 
they said it was haunted ; and sure enough every now and 
then there was a knocking heard down below. And this 
always took place of a stormy night, as if there was some 
poor thing down in the low wouts, and he wasn’t 

comfortable and wanted to get out. Well, one night it 
was so plain and so fearful it was that the sexton he 
went and took the blacksmith and a ship’s carpenter 
down to the harbour, and they go up together and they 
hearken all over the floor, and they open one of the old 
family wouts that belongs to the Penhaligans, and they 
go down with a light. Now the wind it was a-blowing 
all as usual, only worse than common. And there to be 
sure what do they see but the wout half full of sea-water, 
and nows and thens a great spout coming in through a 
hole in the rock, for it was high water and a wind off the 
sea, as 1 tell you. And there was a coffin afloat on the 
water, and every time the spout come through, it set it 
knocking agen the side o’ the wout, and that was the 
ghost.* 

“ What a horrible idea ! w I said, with a half-shudder 
at the unrest of the dead. 

The old man uttered a queer long-drawn sound, neither 


THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 


299 


a chuckle, a crow, nor a laugh, but a mixture oi all three, 
and turned himself yet again to the work which, as he 
approached the end of his narration, he had suspended, 
that he might make his story iell , I suppose, by looking 
me in the face. And as he turned he said, “ I thought 
you would like to be comfortable then as well as other 
people, sir.” 

I could not help laughing to see how the cunning old 
fellow had caught me. I have not yet been able to find 
out how much of truth there was in his story. From 
the twinkle of his eye I cannot help suspecting that if he 
did not invent the tale, he embellished it at least, in 
order to produce the effect which he certainly did pro- 
duce. Humour was clearly his predominant disposition, 
the reflex of which was to be seen, after a mild lunar 
fashion, on the countenance of his wife. Neither could I 
help thinking with pleasure, as I turned away, how the 
merry little old man would enjoy telling his companions 
how he had posed the new parson. Very welcome was 
he to his laugh for my part. Yet I gladly left the 
churchyard, with its sunshine above and its darkness 
below. Indeed I had to look up to the glittering vanes 
on the four pinnacles of the church tower, dwelling aloft 
in the clean sunny air, to get the feeling of the dark 
vault, and the floating coffin, and the knocking heard in 
the windy church, out of my brain. But the thing that 
did free me was the reflection with what supreme disre- 
gard the disincarcerated spirit would look upon any pos- 
sible vicissitudes of its abandoned vault For in propor- 
tion as the body of man’s revelation ceases to be in 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


300 


harmony with the spirit that dwells tl *rein, it become! 
a vault, a prison, from which it must be freedom to 
escape at length. The house we like best would be a 
prison of awful sort if doors and windows were built up. 
Man's abode, as age begins to draw nigh, fares thus. 
Age is in fact the mason that builds up the doors and 
the windows, and death is the angel that breaks the 
prison-house, and lets the captives free. Thus I got 
something out of tne sexton's horrible story. 

But before the week was over, death came near in- 
deed — in far other fashion than any funereal tale could 
have brought it. 

One day, after lunch, I had retired to my study, and 
was dozing in my chair, for the day was hot, when I was 
waked by Charlie rushing into the room with the cry, 
“Papa, papa, there’s a man drowning !” 

I started up, and hurried down to the drawing-room 
which looked out over the bay. I could see nothing 
but people running about on the edge of the quiet waves. 
No sign of human being was on the water. But the one 
boat belonging to the pilot was coming out from the shel 
ter of the lock of the canal where it usually lay, and 
my friend of the coastguard was running down from the 
tower on the cliff with ropes in his hand. He would 
not stop the boat even for the moment it would need to 
take him cn board, but threw them in and urged to 
haste. I stood at ^he window and watched. Every 
now and then I fancied I saw something white heaved 
up on the swell of a wave, and as often was satisfied 
that I had but fancied it. The boat seemed to be float* 


THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 


301 


ing about lazily, if not idly. The eagerness to help 
made it appear at if nothing was going on. Could it, 
after all, have been a false alarm ? Was there, after all, 
no insensible form swinging about in the sweep of those 
waves, with life gradually oozing away? Long, long, 
as it seemed to me, I watched, and still the boat kept 
moving from place to place, so far out that I could see 
nothing distinctly of the motions of its crew. At length 
I saw something. Yes ; a long white thing rose from 
the water slowly, and was drawn into the boat. It 
rowed swiftly to the shore. There was but one place 
fit to land upon, a little patch of sand, nearly covered at 
high water, but now lying yellow in the sun, under the 
window at which I stood, and immediately under our 
garden- wall. Thither the boat shot along ; and there 
my friend of the coastguard, earnest and sad, was wait- 
ing to use, though without hope, every appliance so well 
known to him from the frequent occurrence of such 
necessity in the course of his watchful duties along miles 
and miles of stormy coast 

I will not linger over the sad details of vain endeavour. 
The honoured head of a family, he had departed, and 
left a good name behind him. But even in the midst of 
my poor attentions to the quiet, speechless, pale-faced 
wife, who sat at the head of the corpse, I could not help 
feeling anxious about the effect on my Connie. It was 
impossible to keep the matter concealed from her. The 
undoubted concern on the faces of the two boys was 
enough to reveal that something serious and painful had 
occurred j while my wife and Wynn’e, and indeed the 


THE SEABOARD PARISH, 


302 


whole household, were busy in attending to every re- 
motest suggestion of aid that reached them from the 
little crowd gathered about the body. At length it was 
concluded, on the verdict of the medical man who had 
been sent for, that all further effort was useless. The 
body was borne away, and I led the poor lady to her 
lodging, and remained there with her till I found that, as 
she lay on the sofa, the sleep that so often dogs the steps 
of sorrow had at length thrown its veil over her conscious- 
ness, and put her for the time to rest. There is a gentle 
consolation in the firmness of the grasp of the inevitable, 
known but to those who are led through the valley of the 
shadow. I left her with her son and daughter, and re- 
turned to my own family. They too were of course in 
the skirts of the cloud. Had they only heard of the 
occurrence, it would have had little effect; but death had 
appeared to them. Every one but Connie had seen the 
dead lying there ; and before the day was over, I wished 
that she too had seen the dead. For I found from what 
she said at intervals, and from the shudder that now and 
then passed through her, that her imagination was at 
work, showing but the horrors that belong to death ; for 
the enfolding peace that accompanies it can be known 
but by sight of the dead. When I spoke to her, she 
seemed, and I suppose for the time felt tolerably quiet 
and comfortable ; but I could see that the words she had 
heard fall in the going and coming, and the communica- 
tions of Charlie and Harry to each other, had made as 
it were an excoriation on her fancy, to which her con- 
sciousness was ever returning. And now I became 


THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 


303 


more grateful than I had yet been for the gift of that 
gipsy-child. For I felt no anxiety about Connie so long 
as she was with her. The presence even of her mother 
could not relieve her, for she and Wynnie were both 
clouded with the same awe, and its reflex in Connie was 
distorted by her fancy. But the sweet ignorance of the 
baby, which, rightly considered, is more than a type or 
symbol of faith, operated most healingly ; for she ap- 
peared in her sweet merry ways — no baby was ever more 
filled with the mere gladness of life than Connie’s baby 
— to the mood in which they all were, like a little sunny 
window in a cathedral crypt, telling of a whole universe 
of sunshine and motion beyond those oppressed pillars 
and low-groined arches. And why should not the baby 
lenow best? I believe the babies do know best. I 
therefore favoured her having the child more than 1 
might otherwise have thought good for her, being anxious 
to get the dreary, unhealthy impression healed as soot 
as possible, lest it should, in the delicate physical condi- 
tion in which she was, turn to a sore. 

But my wife suffered for a time nearly as much as 
Connie. As long as she was going about the house or 
attending to the wants of her family, she was free ; but 
no sooner did she lay her head on the pillow than in 
rushed the cry of the sea, fierce, unkind, craving like 
a wild beast. Again and again she spoke of it to me, 
for it came to her mingled with the voice of the tempter, 
saying, “ Cruel chance /’ over and over again. For 
although the two words contradict each other when 
put together thus, each in its turn would assert itself. 


304 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


A great part of the doubt in the world comes from 
the fact that there are in it so many more of the 
impressible as compared with the originating minds. 
Where the openness to impression is balanced by the 
power of pioduction, the painful questions of the world 
are speedily met by their answers ; where such is not 
the case, there are often long periods of suffering till 
the child-answer of truth is brought to the birth. Hence 
the need for every impressible mind to be, by reading 
or speech, held in living association with an original 
mind able to combat those suggestions of doubt and 
oven unbelief, which the look of things must often 
occasion — a look which comes from our inability to 
gain other than fragmentary visions of the work that the 
Father worketh hitherto. When the kingdom of heaven 
is at hand, one sign thereof will be that all clergymen 
will be more or less of the latter sort, and mere receptive 
goodness, no more than education and moral character, 
will be considered sufficient reason for a man’s occupy- 
ing the high position of an instructor of his fellows. 
But even now this possession of original power is not 
by any means to be limited to those who make public 
show of the same. In many a humble parish priest 
it shows itself at the bedside of the suffering, or in the 
admonition of the closet, although as yet there are many 
of the clergy who, so far from being, able to console 
wisely, are incapable of understanding the condition of 
those that need consolation. 

“ It is all a fancy, my dear,” I said to her. “ There 
is nothing more terrible in this than in any other death 


THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 


305 


On the contrary, I can hardly imagine a less fearful one. 
A big wave falls on the man’s head and stuns him, and 
wit hout further suffering he floats gently out on the sea 
of the unknown.” 

u But it is so terrible for those left behind ! w 

“ Had you seen the face of his widow, so gentle, so 
loving, so resigned in its pallor, you would not have 
thought it so terrible ” 

But though she always seemed satisfied, and no doubt 
felt nearly so, after any conversation of the sort, yet 
every night she would call out once and again, “Oh, 
that sea, out there ! ” I was very glad indeed when 
Mr Turner, who had arranged to spend a short holiday 
with us, arrived. 

He was concerned at the news I gave him of the shock 
both Connie and her mother had received, and coun- 
selled an immediate change, that time might, in the 
absence of surrounding associations, obliterate something 
of the impression that had been made. The conse- 
quence was, that we resolved to remove our household, 
for a short time, to some place not too far off to permit 
of my attending to my duties at Kilkhaven, but out of 
the sight and sound of the sea. It was Thursday when 
Mr Turner arrived, and he spent the next two days in 
inquiring and looking about for a suitable spot to which 
we might repair as early in the week as possible. 

On the Saturday, the blacksmith was busy in the church 
tower, and I went in to see how he was getting on. 

“ You had a sad business here the last week, sir,” he 
*aid, after we had done talking about the repairs. 


306 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


u A very sad business, indeed,” I answered. 

u It was a warning to us all,” he said. 

u We may well take it so,” I returned. “ But it seems 
to me that we are too ready to think of such remarkable 
things only by themselves, instead of being roused by 
then to regard everything, common and uncommon, 
as ordered by the same care and wisdom.” 

“ One of our local preachers made a grand use of it.” 

I made no reply. He resumed. 

“ They tell me you took no notice of it last Sunday, 
sir.” 

“ I made no immediate allusion to it certainly. But I 
preached under the influence of it. And I thought it 
better that those who could reflect on the matter should 
be thus led to think for themselves than that they should 
be subjected to the reception of my thoughts and feelings 
about it ; for in the main it is life and not death that we 
have to preach.” 

“ I don’t quite understand you, sir. But then you 
don’t care much for preaching in your church.” 

“ I confess,” I answered, “ that there has been much 
indifference on that point. I could, however, mention to 
you many and grand exceptions. Still there is, even in 
some of the best in the church, a great amount of dis- 
belief in the efficacy of preaching. And I allow that a 
great deal of what is called preaching partakes of its 
nature only in the remotest degree. But, while I hold a 
6trong opinion of its value — that is where it is genuine — 
I venture just to suggest that the nature of the preaching 
to which the body you belong to has resorted, has had 


THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 


307 


something to do, by way of a reaction, in driving the 
church to the other extreme.” 

“ How do you mean that, sir?” 

“You try to work upon people’s feelings without re- 
ference to their judgment. Any one who can preach 
what you call rousing sermons, is considered a grand 
preacher amongst you, and there is a great danger of hii 
being led thereby to talk more nonsense than sense. 
And then when the excitement goes off, there is no seed 
left in the soil to grow in peace, and they are always 
craving after more excitement.” 

“ Well, there is the preacher to rouse them up 
again.” 

“And the consequence is, that they continue like 
children — the good ones, I mean — and have hardly a 
chance of making a calm, deliberate choice of that which 
is good ; while those who have been only excited and 
nothing more, are hardened and seared by the recurrence 
of such feeling as is neither aroused by truth nor followed 
by action.” 

“ You daren’t talk like that if you knew the kind of 
people in this country that the Methodists, as you call 
them, have got a hold of. They tell me it was like hell 
itself down in those mines before Wesley come among 
them.” 

“ I should be a fool or a bigot to doubt that the Wes- 
terns have done incalculable good in the country. And 
that not alone to the people who never went to church. 
The whole Church of England is under obligation! to 
Methodism such as no words can overstate.” 


3o8 


THE SEABOARD PARISH 


“ I wonder you can say such things against them 
then.” 

“Now there you show the evil of thinking too much 
about the party you belong to. It makes a man touchy ; 
and then he fancies, when another is merely, it may be, 
analysing a difference, or insisting strongly on some great 
truth, that he is talking against his party.” 

“ But you said, sir, that our clergy don’t care about 
moving our judgments, only our feelings. Now I know 
preachers amongst us of whom that would be anything 
but true.” 

“ Of course there must be. But there is what I say : 
your party-feeling makes you touchy. A man can’t al- 
ways be saying in the press of utterance — ‘ Of course 
there are exceptions' That is understood. I confess I 
do not know much about your clergy, for I have not had 
the opportunity. But I do know this, that some of the 
best and most liberal people I have ever known have 
belonged to your community.” 

“ They do gather a deal of money for good pur- 
poses.” 

“ Yes. But that was not what I meant by liberal It 
is far easier to give money than to be generous in judg- 
ment. I meant by liberal , , able to see the good and 
true in people that differ from you — glad *o be roused 
to the reception of truth in God’s name from whatever 
quarter it may come, and not readily finding offence 
where a remark may have chanced to be too sweeping 
or unguarded. But I see that I ought to be more care- 
ful, for I have made you, who certainly are not one at 


THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 


309 


the quarrelsome people I have been speaking of, misun- 
derstand me.” 

“ I beg your pardon, sir. I was hasty. But I do 
think I am more ready to lose my temper since” 

Here he stopped. A fit of coughing came on, and, 
to my concern, was followed by what I saw plainly 
could be the result only of a rupture in the lungs. I 
insisted on his dropping his work and coming home with 
me, where I made him rest the remainder of the day and 
all Sunday, sending word to his mother that I could not 
let him go home. When we left on the Monday morn- 
ing, we took him with us in the carriage hired for the 
journey, and set him down at his mother’s, apparently 
no worse -han usual. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


AT THE FARM. 



EAVING the younger members of the family 
at home with the servants, we set out for a 
farm-house, some twenty miles off, which 
Turner had discovered for us. Connie had 


stood the journey down so well, and was now so much 
stronger, that we had no anxiety about her so far as re- 
garded the travelling. Through deep lanes with many 
cottages and here and there a very ugly little chapel, over 
steep hills, up which Turner and Wynnie and I walked, 
and along sterile moors we drove, stopping at roadside 
inns, and often besides to raise Connie and let her look 
about upon the extended prospect, so that it was draw- 
ing towards evening before we arrived at our destination. 
On the way Turner had warned us that we were not to 
expect a beautiful country, although the place was with- 
in reach of much that was remarkable. Therefore we 
were not surprised when we drew up at the door of a 


AT THE FARM. 


311 


bare-looking, shelterless house, with scarcely a tree 
in sight, and a stretch of undulating fields on every 
side. 

“ A dreary place in winter, Turner,” I said, after we 
nad seen Connie comfortably deposited in the nice white- 
curtained parlour, smelling of dried roses even in the 
height of the fresh ones, and had strolled out while our 
tea-dinner was being got ready for us. 

“ Not a doubt of it; but just the place I wanted for 
Miss Connie,” he replied. “ We are high above the 
sea, and the air is very bracing, and not, at this season, 
l’)o cold. A month later I should not on any account 
have brought her here.” 

“ I think even now there is a certain freshness in 
the wind that calls up a kind of will in the nerves to 
meet it.” 

“ That is precisely what I wanted for you all. You 
observe there is no rasp in its touch, however. There 
are regions in this island of ours where even in the hottest 
day in summer you would frequently discover a certain 
unfriendly edge in the air, that would set you wonder- 
ing whether the seasons had not changed since you 
were a boy, and used to lie on the grass half the idle 
day” 

" I often do wonder whether it may not be so. But I 
always come to the conclusion that even this is but an 
example of the involuntary tendency of the mind of man 
towards the ideal. He forgets all that comes between 
and divides the hints of perfection scattered here and 
there along the scope of his experience. I especially re- 


312 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


member one summer day in my childhood, which has 
coloured all my ideas of summer and bliss and fulfilment 
of content It is made up of only mossy grass, and the 
scent of the earth and wild flowers, and hot sun, and per- 
fect sky — deep and blue, and traversed by blinding white 
clouds. I could not have been more than five or six, I 
think, from the kind of dress I wore, the very pearl but- 
tons of which, encircled on their face with a ring of half- 
spherical hollows, have their undeniable relation in my 
memory to the heavens and the earth, to the march of 
the glorious clouds, and the tender scent of the rooted 
flowers; and, indeed, when I think of it, must, by the 
delight they gave me, have opened my mind the more 
to the enjoyment of the eternal paradise around me. 
What a thing it is to please a child ! ” 

“ I know what you mean perfectly,” answered Turner. 
u It is as I get older that I understand what Wordsworth 
says about childhood. It is indeed a mercy that we 
were not born grown men, with what we consider our 
wits about us. They are blinding things those wits we 
gather. I fancy that the single thread by which God 
sometimes keeps hold of a man is such an impression 
of his childhood as that of which you have been speak- 
ing.” 

“I do not doubt it. For conscience is so near in all 
those memories to which you refer ! The whole sur- 
rounding of them is so at variance with sin ! A sense of 
purity, not in himself, for the child is not feeling that he 
is pure, is all about him ; and when afterwards the con- 
dition returns upon him, returns when he is conscious of 


AT THE FARM. 


313 


so much that is evil and so much that is unsatisfied in 
him, it brings with it a longing after the high clear air of 
moral well-being.” 

“ Do you think, then, that it is only by association 
that nature thus impresses us? that she has no power of 
meaning these things?” 

“Not at all. No doubt there is something in the re- 
collection of the associations of childhood to strengthen 
the power of nature upon us, but the power is in nature 
herself, else it would be but a poor weak thing to what 
it is. There is purity and state in that sky. There is a 
peace now in this wide still earth — not so very beautiful, 
you own — and in that overhanging blue, which my heart 
cries out that it needs and cannot be well till it gains — 
gains in the truth, gains in God, who is the power of 
truth, the living and causing truth. There is indeed a 
rest that remain eth, a rest pictured out even here this 
night, to rouse my dull heart to desire it and follow after 
it, a rest that consists in thinking the thoughts of Him 
who is the Peace because the Unity, in being filled with 
that spirit which now pictures itself forth in this repose 
of the heavens and the earth.” 

“ True,” said Turner, after a pause. “ I must think 
more about such things. The science the present day 
is going wild about will not give us that rest.” 

“ No ; but that rest will do much to give you that 
science. A man with this repose in his heart will do 
more by far, other capabilities being equal, to find out 
die laus that govern things. For all law is living ri it * 

“What you have been saying,” resumed Turner, after 


314 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


another pause, “ reminds me much of one of Words- 
worth’s poems. I do not mean the famous ode.” 

‘‘You mean the Ninth Evening Voluntary, I know — 
one of his finest and truest and deepest poems. It 
begins, Had this effulgence disappeared." 

“ Yes, that is the one I mean. I shall read it again 
when I go home. But you don’t agree with Wordsworth, 
do you, about our having had an existence previous to 
this ? ” 

He gave a little laugh as he asked the question. 

“Not in the least. But an opinion held by such men 
as Plato, Origen, and Wordsworth, is not to be laughed 
at, Mr Turner. It cannot be in its nature absurd. I 
might have mentioned Shelley as holding it, too, had his 
opinion been worth anything.” 

“ Then you don’t think much of Shelley? ” 

“ 1 think his feeling most valuable ; his opinion nearly 
worth’ess.” 

“ Well, perhaps I had no business to laugh at it ; 
but” 

“To not suppose for a moment that I even lean to it. 
I dis ike it. It would make me unhappy to think there 
was he least of sound argument for it. But I respect 
the men who have held it, and know there must be 
something good in it, else they could not have held 
it.” 

“ Are you able then to sympathize with that ode of 
Wordsworth’s? Does it not depend for all its worth on 
the admission of this theory?” 

“ Not in the least Is it necessary to aanut that we 


AT THE FARM. 


31$ 


must have had a conscious life before this life to find 
meaning in the words, — 

• But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
From God who is our home?' 

Is not all the good in us his image? Imperfect and 
sinful as we are, is not all the foundation of our being 
his image ? Is not the sin all ours, and the life in us 
all God’s ? We cannot be the creatures of God without 
partaking of his nature. Every motion of our conscience, 
every admiration of what is pure and noble, is a sign and 
a result of this. Is not every self-accusation a proof of 
the presence of his spirit ? That comes not of ourselves 
— that is not without him. These are the clouds of 
glory we come trailing from him. All feelings of beauty 
and peace and loveliness and right and goodness, we 
trail with us from our home. God is the only home of 
the human soul. To interpret in this manner what 
Wordsworth says, will enable us to enter into perfect 
sympathy with all that grandest of his poems. I do not 
say this is what he meant; but I think it includes what 
he meant by being greater and wider than what he meant 
Nor am I guilty of presumption in saying so, for surely 
the idea that we are born of God is a greater idea than 
chat we have lived with him a life before this life. But 
Wordsworth is not the first among our religious poets to 
give us at least what is valuable in the notion. I came 
upon a volume amongst my friend Shepherd’s books, 
with which I had made no acquaintance before — Henry 
Vaughan’s poems. I brought it with me, for it has finer 


316 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


lines, I almost think, than any in George Herbert, 
though not so fine poems by any means as his best. 
When we go into the house, I will read one of them to 
you.” 

“Thank you,” said Turner. “ I wish I could have 
such talk once a week. The shades of the prison 
house, you know, Mr Walton, are always trying to close 
about us, and shut out the vision of the glories we have 
come from, as Wordsworth says.” 

“A man,” I answered, “who ministers to the miser- 
able necessities of his fellows has even more need than 
another to believe in the light and the gladness — else a 
poor Job’s comforter will he be. 1 don’t want to be 
treated like a musical snuff-box.” 

The doctor laughed. 

“No man can frove” he said, “that there is not a 
being inside the snuff-box, existing in virtue of the har- 
mony of its parts, comfortable when they go well, sick 
when they go badly, and dying when it is dismembered, 
or even when it stops.” 

“ No,” I answered. “No man can prove it. But no 
man can convince a human being of it. And just as 
little can any one convince me that my conscience, 
making me do sometimes what I don't like, comes from 
a harmonious action of the particles of my brain. But 
it is time we went in, for by the law of things in general, 
I being ready for my dinner, my dinner ought to be 
ready for me.” 

“A law with more exceptions than instances, I fear," 

said Turner. 


AT THE FARM. 


3*7 


“ 1 doubt that,” I answered. “ The readiness is every- 
thing, and that we constantly blunder in. But we had 
better see whether we are really ready for it by trying 
whether it is ready for us.” 

Connie went to bed early, as indeed we all did, and 
she was rather better than worse the next morning. My 
wife, for the first time for many nights, said nothing about 
the crying of the sea. The following day Turner and I 
set out to explore the neighbourhood. The rest re- 
mained quietly at home. 

It was, as I have said, a high bare country. The fields 
lay side by side, parted from each other chiefly, as so 
often in Scotland; by stone walls ; and these stones being 
of a laminated nature, the walls were not unfrequently 
built by laying thin plates on their edges, which gave a 
neatness to them not found in other parts of the country 
as far as I am aware. In the middle of the fields came 
here and there patches of yet unreclaimed moorland. 

Now in a region like this, beauty must be looked for 
below the surface. There is a probability of finding 
hollows of repose, sunken spots of loveliness, hidden 
away altogether from the general aspect of sternness, or 
perhaps sterility, that meets the eye in glancing over the 
outspread landscape ; just as in the natures of stem men 
you may expect to find, if opportunity should be afforded 
you, sunny spots of tender verdure, kept ever green by 
that very sternness which is turned towards the common 
gaze— thus existent because they are below the surface, 
and not laid bare to the sweep of the cold winds that 
roam the world. How often have not men started with 


3 i8 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


amaze at the discovery of some feminine sweetness, some 
grace of protection in the man whom they had judged 
cold and hard and rugged, inaccessible to the more 
genial influences of humanity! It may be that such 
men are only fighting against the wind, and keep their 
hearts open to the sun. 

I knew this; and when Turner and I set out that 
morning to explore, I expected to light upon some in- 
stance of it — some mine or other in which nature had 
hidden away rare jewels ; but I was not prepared to find 
such as I did find. With our hearts full of a glad secret 
we returned home, but we said nothing about it, in order 
that Ethelwyn and Wynnie might enjoy the discovery 
even as we had enjoyed it. 

There was another grand fact with regard to the 
neighbourhood about which we judged it better to be 
silent for a few days, that the inland influences might be 
free to work. We were considerably nearer the ocean 
than my wife and daughters supposed, for we had made 
a great round in order to arrive from the land-side. We 
were, however, out of the sound of its waves, which 
broke along the shore, in this part, at the foot of 
tremendous cliffs. What cliffs they were we shall soon 
find. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


THE KEEVE. 

OW, my dear l now, Wynnie ! ” I said, aftef 
prayers the next morning, “you must come 
out for a walk as soon as ever you can get 
your bonnets on.” 

“ But we can’t leave Connie, papa,” objected Wynnie. 

“ Oh, yes, you can, quite well. There ’s nursie to 
look after her. What do you say, Connie 1 ” 

For, for some time now, Connie had been able to get 
up so early, that it was no unusual thing to have prayers 
in her room. 

“ I am entirely independent of help from my family,” 
returned Connie, grandiloquently. “ I am a woman oi 
independent means,” she added. “ If you say another 
word, I will rise and leave the room.” 

And she made a movement as if she would actually 
do as she had said. Seized with an involuntary terror, 
I rushed towards her, and the impertinent girl burst out 



320 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


laughing in my face — threw herself back on her pillows, 
and laughed delightedly. 

u Take care, papa,” she said. u I carry a terrible club 
for rebellious people.” Then, he:* mood changing, she 
added, as if to suppress the tears gathering in her eyes, 
“ I am the queen — of luxury and self-will — and I won’t 
have anybody come near me till dinner-time. I mean 
to enjoy myself.” 

So the matter was settled, and we went out for our 
walk. Ethelwyn was not such a good } walker as she had 
been ; but even if she had retained the strength of her 
youth, we should not have got on much the better for it 
—so often did she and Wynnie stop to grub ferns out of 
the chinks and roots of the stone walls. Now, I admire 
ferns as much as anybody — that is, not, I fear, so much 
as my wife and daughter, but quite enough notwithstand- 
ing — but I do not quite enjoy being pulled up like a fern 
at every turn. 

“ Now, my dear, what is the use of stopping to torture 
that harmless vegetable?’ I say, but say in vain. “ It 
is much more beautiful where it is than it will be 
anywhere where you can put it. Besides, you know 
they never come to anything with you. They always 
die.” 

Thereupon my wife reminds me of this fern and that 
fern, gathered in such and such places, and now in such 
and such corners of the garden or the greenhouse, o* 
under glass-shades in this or that room, of the very 
existence of which I am ignorant, whether from original 
inattention, or merely from forgetfulness, I do not know 


THE REEVE. 


3 « 


Certainly, out of their own place I do not care much for 
them. 

At length, partly by the inducement I held out to 
them of a much greater variety of ferns where we were 
bound, I succeeded in getting them over the two miles 
in little more than two hours. After passing from the 
lanes into the fields, our way led downwards till we 
reached a very steep large slope, with a delightful 
southern exposure, and covered with the sweetest down- 
grasses. It was just the place to lie in, as on the edge 
cl the earth, and look abroad upon the universe of air 
aid floating worlds. 

“ Let us have a rest here, Ethel,” I said. “ I am sure 
this is much more delightful than uprooting ferns. What 
an awful thing to think that here we are on this great 
round tumbling ball of a world, held by the feet, and 
lifting up the head into infinite space — without choice 
or wish of our own — compelled to think and to be, 
whether we will or not ! Just God must know it to be 
very good, or he would not have taken it in his hands 
to make individual lives without a possible will of theirs. 
He must be our Father, or we are wretched creatures — 
the slaves of a fatal necessity ! Did it ever strike you. 
Turner, that each one of us stands on the apex of the 
world 1 With a sphere, you know, it must be so. And 
thus is typified, as It seems to me, that each one of us 
must look up for himself to find God, and then look 
abroad to find his felloes.” 

“ I think I know what you mean/’ was all Turner'i 
reply. 

s 


322 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“No doubt,” I resumed, “the apprehension of this 
truth has, in otherwise ill-ordered minds, given rise to 
all sorts of fierce and grotesque fanaticism. But the 
minds which have thus conceived the truth, would have 
been immeasurably worse without it: nay, this truth 
affords at last the only possible door out of the miseries 
of their own chaos, whether inherited or the result of 
their own misconduct.” 

“ What ’s that in the grass ? ” cried Wynnie, in a tone 
ot alarm. 

I looked where she indicated, and saw a slow-worm, 
or blind-worm, lying basking in the sun. I rose and 
went towards it. 

“ Here ’s your stick,” said Turner. 

“What for?” I asked. “Why should I kill it? It is 
perfectly harmless, and, to my mind, beautiful.” 

I took it in my hands, and brought it to my wife. 
She gave an involuntary shudder as it came near her. 

“ I assure you it is harmless,” I said, “ though it has a 
forked tongue.” And I opened its mouth as I spoke. 
“ I do not think the serpent form is essentially ugly.” 

“ It makes me feel ugly,” said Wynnie. 

“ I allow I do not quite understand the mystery of it," 
I said. “ But you never saw lovelier ornamentation than 
these silvery scales, with all the neatness of what you 
ladies call a set pattern, and none of the stiffness, for 
there are not two of them the same in form. And you 
never saw lovelier curves than this little patient creature, 
which does not even try to get away from me, makef 
with the queer long thin bod) of him.” 


THE KEEVE. 


323 


“I wonder how it can look after its tail, it is so far 
off,” said Wynnie. 

“ It does though — better than you ladies look after 
your long dresses. I wonder whether it is descended 
from creatures that once had feet, and did not make 
a good use of them. Perhaps they had wings even, 
and would not use them at all, and so lost them. Its 
ancestors may have had poison-fangs: it is innocent 
enough. But it is a terrible thing to be all feet, is it 
not? There is an awful significance in the condem- 
nation of the serpent — ‘ On thy belly shalt thou go, 
and eat dust.’ — But it is better t.o talk of beautiful 
things. My soul at least has dropped from its world 
apex. Let us go on. Come, wife. Come, Turner.” 

They did not seem willing to rise. But the glen 
drew me. I rose, and my wife followed my example 
with the help of my hand. She returned to the subject, 
however, as we descended the slope. 

“ Is it possible that in the course of ever so many ages 
wings and feet should be both lost ? ” she said. 

“ The most presumptuous thing in the world is to 
pronounce on the possible and the impossible. I do 
not know what is possible and what is impossible. I 
can only tell a little of what is true and what is untrue. 
But I do say this, that between the condition of many 
decent members of society and that for the sake of 
which God made them, there is a gulf quite as vast as 
that between a serpent and a bird. I get peeps now 
and then into the condition of my own heart, which, 
for the moment, make it seem impossible that I should 


324 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


ever rise into a true state of nature — that is, into the 
simplicity of God’s will concerning me. The only hope 
for ourselves and for others lies in him— in the power 
the creating spirit has over the spirits he has made.” 

By this time the descent on the grass was getting too 
steep and slippery to admit of our continuing to advance 
in that direction. We turned, therefore, down the 
valley in the direction of the sea. It was but a narrow 
cleft, and narrowed much towards a deeper cleft, in 
which we now saw the tops of trees, and from which 
we heard the rush of water. Nor had we gone far in 
this direction before we came upon a gate in a stone 
wall, which led into what seemed a neglected garden. 
We entered, and found a path turning and winding, 
among small trees, and luxuriant ferns, and great stones, 
and fragments of ruins down towards the bottom of the 
chasm. The noise of falling water increased as we 
went on, and at length, after some scrambling and 
several sharp turns, we found ourselves with a nearly 
precipitous wall on each side, clothed with shrubs and 
ivy, and creeping things of the vegetable world. Up 
this cleft there was no advance. The head of it was 
a precipice down which shot the stream from the vale 
above, pouring out of a deep slit it had itself cut in the 
rock as with a knife. Half-way down, it tumbled into 
a great basin of hollowed stone, and flowing from a 
chasm in its side, which left part of the lip of the basin 
standing like the arch of a vanished bridge, it fell into 
a black pool below, whence it crept as if half-stunned 
or weary down the gentle decline of the ravine. It 


THE KF.EVE. 


3*5 


was a perfect little picture. I, for my part, had never 
6een such a picturesque fall. It was a little gem of 
nature, complete in effect. The ladies were full of 
pleasure. Wynnie, forgetting her usual reserve, broke 
out in frantic exclamations of delight. 

We stood for a while regarding the ceaseless pour of 
the water down the precipice, here shot slanting in a 
little trough of the rock, full of force and purpose, here 
falling in great curls of green and gray, with an expres- 
sion of absolute helplessness and conscious perdition, as 
if sheer to the centre, but rejoicing the next moment to 
find itself brought up boiling and bubbling in the basin, 
to issue in the gathered hope of experience. Then we 
turned down the stream a little way, crossed it by a 
plank, and stood again to regard it from the opposi'e 
side. Small as the whole affair was — not more than 
about a hundred and fifty feet in height — it was so full 
of variety that I saw it was all my memory could do, if 
it carried away anything like a correct picture oi its 
aspect. I was contemplating it fixedly, when a little 
stifled cry from Wynnie made me start and look round. 
Her face was flushed, yet she was trying to look uncon- 
cerned. 

“ I thought we were quite alone, papa,” she said; M but 
I see a gentleman sketching.” 

I looked whither she indicated. A little way down, the 
bed of the ravine widened considerably, and was no doubt 
filled with water in rainy weather. Now it was swampy 
—full of reeds and willow bushes. But on the opposite 
fide of the stream, with a little canal from it going all 


326 


THE SEABOARD PARISH 


around it, lay a great flat rectangular stone, not more than 
a foot above the level of the water, and upon a camp-stool 
in the centre of this stone sat a gentleman sketching. I 
had no doubt that Wynnie had recognized him at once. 
And I was annoyed, and indeed, angry, to think that Mr 
Percivale had followed us here. , But while I regarded 
him, he looked up, rose very quietly, and, with his pencil 
in his hand, came towards us. With no nearer approach 
to familiarity than a bow, and no expression of either 
much pleasure or any surprise, he said — 

“ I have seen your party for some time, Mr Walton — 
since you crossed the stream ; but I would not break in 
upon your enjoyment with the surprise which my pre- 
sence here must cause you.” 

I suppose I answered with a bow of some sort ; for I 
could not say with truth that I was glad to see him. He 
resumed, doubtless penetrating my suspicion — 

“ I have been here almost a week. I certainly had no 
expectation of the pleasure of seeing you.” 

This he said lightly, though no doubt with the object 
of clearing himself. And I was, if not reassured, yet dis- 
armed, by his statement ; for I could not believe, from 
what I knew of him, that he would be guilty of such a 
white lie as many a gentleman would have thought justi- 
fiable on the occasion. Still, I suppose he found me a 
little stiff, for presently he said — 

“ If you will excuse me, I will return to my work.” 
Then I felt as if I must say something, for I had shown 
him no courtesy during the interview. 

u It must be a great pleasure to carry away such tali* 


THE KEEVE. 


3*7 


mans with you — capable of bringing the place back to 
your mental vision at any moment” 

“To tell the truth,” he answered, “I am a little 
ashamed of being found sketching here. Such bits of 
scenery are not of my favourite studies. But it is a 
change.” 

“ It is very beautiful here,” I said, in a tone of con- 
travention. 

“ It is very pretty,” he answered — “ very lovely, if you 
will — not very beautiful, I think. I would keep that 
word for things of larger regard. Beauty requires width* 
and here is none. I had almost said this place was fan- 
ciful — the work of imagination in her play-hours, not in 
her large serious moods. It affects me like the face of a 
woman only pretty, about which boys and guardsmen 
will rave — to me not very interesting, save for its single 
lines.” 

“ Why, then, do you sketch the place ?” 

“ A very fair question,” he returned, with a smile. 
“Just because it is soothing from the very absence of 
beauty. I would far rather, however, if I were only 
following my taste, take the barest bit of the moor above, 
with a streak of the cold sky over it. That gives 
room.” 

“You would like to put a skylark in it, wouldn’t 
y©u r 

“ That I would if I knew how. I see you know what 
I mean. But the mere romantic I never had much taste 
for ; though if you saw the kind of pictures I try to paint, 
you would not wonder that I take sketches of places lik* 


328 


1 HE SEABOARD PARISH. 


this, while in my heart of hearts I do not care much 
tor them. They are so different, and just tlwefore they 
are good for me. I am not working now. I am only 
playing.” 

“ With a view to working better afterwards, I have no 
doubt,” I answered. 

“You are right there, I hope,” was his quiet leply, as 
he turned and walked back to the island. 

He had not made a step towards joining us. He had 
only taken his hat off to the ladies. He was gaining 
ground upon me rapidly. 

“ Have you quarrelled with our new friend, Harry I* 
sadd my wife, as I came up to her. 

She was sitting on a stone. Turner and Wynnie were 
farther off towards the foot of the fall. 

“Not in the least,” I answered, slightly outraged — I 
did not at first know why — by the question. “ He is only 
gone to his work, which is a duty belonging both to the 
first and second tables of the law.” 

“ I hope you have asked him to come home to our 
early dinner, then,” she rejoined. 

“ I have not. That remains for you to do. Come, I 
will take you to him.” 

Ethelwyn rose at once, put her hand in mine, and with 
a little help, soon reached the table-rock. When Perci- 
vale saw that she was really on a visit to him on hii 
island-perch, he rose, and when she came near enough* 
held out his hand. It was but a step, and she was 
beside him in a moment. After the usual greetings, 
which on her part, although very quiet, like every motion 


THE REEVE. 


3*9 


ind word of hers, were yet indubitably cordial and kind, 
she said — 

“ When you get back to London, Mr Percivale, might 
1 aak you to allow some friends of mine to call at your 
.studio, and see your paintings J” 

“ With all my heart,” answered Percivale. “ I must 
warn you, however, that I have not much they will care 
to see. They will perhaps go away less happy than they 
entered. Not many people care to see my pictures 
twice.” 

“ I would not send you any one I thought unworthy 
>f the honour,” answered my wife. 

Percivale bowed — one of his stately, old-world bowsj, 
which I greatly liked. 

“ Any friend of youis— that is guarantee sufficient,” he 
answered. 

There was this peculiarity about any compliment that 
Percivale paid, that you had not a doubt of its being 
genuine. 

“Will you come and take an early dinner with us?" 
said my wife. “ My invalid daughter will be very pleased 
to see you.” 

“ I will with pleasure,” he answered, but in a tone of 
some hesitation, as he glanced from Ethelwyn to me. 

“ My wife speaks for us all,” I said. “ It will give us 
all pleasure.” 

“ I am only afraid it will break in upon your morning’s 
work,” remarked Ethelwyn. 

“ Oh ! that is not of the least consequence,” he re* 
joined. “In fact, as I have just been saying to Ml 


53 ° 


TUE SEABOARD PARISH. 


Walton, I am not working a f . all at present This is 
pure recreati in.” 

As he spoke, he turned towards his easel, and began 
hastily to bundle up his things. 

“ We ’re not quite ready to go yet,” said my wife, loath 
to leave the lovely spot “What a curious flat stone 
this is ! ” she added. 

“ It is,” said Percivale. “ The man to whom the 
place belongs, a worthy yeoman of the old school, says 
that this wider part of the channel must have been the 
fish-pond, and that the portly monks stood on this stone 
and fished in the pond.” 

“ Then was there a monastery here 1 ” I asked. 

“Certainly. The ruins of the chapel, one of the 
smallest, are on the top, just above the fall — rather a 
fearful place to look down from. I wonder you did not 
observe them as you came. They say it had a silver 
bell in the days of its glory, which now lies in a deep 
hole under the basin, half-way between the top and bot- 
tom of the fall. But the old man says that nothing will 
make him look, or let any one else lift the huge stone ; 
for he is much better pleased to believe that it may be 
there, than he would be to know it was not there ; for 
certainly, if it were found, it would not be left there 
long.” 

As he spoke Percivale had continued packing his 
gear. He now led our party up to the chapel, and thence 
down a few yards to the edge of the chasm, where the 
watei fell headlong. I turned away with that fear of 
high places which is one of my many weaknesses, and 


THE KEEVE. 


33 * 


when I turned again towards the spot, there was Wynnie 
on the very edge, looking over into the flash and tumult 
of the water below, but with a nervous grasp of the hand 
of Percivale, who stood a little further back. 

In going home, the painter led us by an easier way 
out of the valley, left his little easel and other things at a 
cottage, and then walked on in front between my wife 
and daughter, while Turner and I followed. He seemed 
quite at his ease with them, and plenty of talk and 
laughter rose on the way. I, however, was chiefly oc- 
cupied with finding out Tamer’s impression of Connie’s 
condition. 

“ She is certainly better,” he said. “ I wonder you do 
not see it as plainly ?s I do. The pain is nearly gone 
from her spine, and she can move herself a good deaf 
more, I am ceitcin, than she could when she left. She 
asked me yesterday if she might not turn upon one side. 
‘Do you think you could V I asked. — ‘I think so,’ she 
answered. ‘At any rate, I have often a great inclination 
to try , only papa said I had better wait till you came.’ 
I do think she might be allowed a little more change of 
posture row.” 

“ Then you have really some hope of her final re- 
covery 1 ” 

“ T have hope most certainly. But what is hope in me, 
you must not allow to become certainty in you. I am 
nearly sure, though, that she can never be other than an 
invalid ; that is, if I am to judge by what I know of such 
cases.” 

“lam thankful for the hope,” I answered. “You need 


332 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


not be afraid of my turning upon you, should the hope 
never pass into sight I should do so only if I found 
that you had been treating me irrationally — inspiring 
me with hope which you knew to be false. The element 
of uncertainty is essential to hope, and for all true hope, 
even as hope; man has to be unspeakably thankful*’* 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


THE WALK TO CHURCH. 

WAS glad to be able to arrange with a young 
clergyman who was on a visit to Kilkhaven, 
that he should take my duty for me the next 
Sunday, for that was the only one Turner 
could spend with us. He and I and Wynnie walked 
together two miles to church. It was a lovely morning, 
with just a tint of autumn in the air. But even that tint, 
though all else was of the summer, brought a shadow, I 
could see, on Wynnie’s face. 

“ You said you would show me a poem of — Vaughan, 
I think you said, was the name of the writer. I am too 
ignorant of our older literature,” said Turner. 

" I have only just made acquaintance with him,” I 
answered. “ But I think I can repeat the poem. You 
shall judge whether it is not like Wordsworth’s ode. 

* Happy those early days, when I 
Shined in my angel infancy ; 



334 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


Before I understood the place 
Appointed for my second race, 

Or taught my*soul to fancy ought 
But a white, celestial thought ; 

When yet I had not walked above 
A mile or two from my first love, 

And looking back, at that short space, 

Could see a glimpse of his bright face; 

When on some gilded cloud or flower 
My gazing soul would dwell an hour. 

And in those weaker glories spy 
Some shadows of eternity ; 

Before I taught my tongue to wound 
My conscience with a sinful sound. 

But felt through all this fleshly dress 
Bright shoots of everlastingness. 

O how I long to travel back' ” 

But here I broke down, for I could not remember the 
rest with even approximate accuracy. 

“ When did this Vaughan live ?” asked Turner. 

“ He was bom, I find, in 1621 — five years, that is, 
after Shakspeare’s death, and when Milton was about 
thirteen years old. He lived to the age of seventy- 
three, but seems to have been little known. In politics 
he was on the Cavalier side. By the way, he was a 
medical man, like you, Turner — an M.D. We’ll have 
a glance at the little book when we go back. Don’t 
let me forget to show it you. A good many of your 
profession have distinguished themselves in literature, 
and as profound believers, too.’’ 

“ I should have thought the profession had been 
chiefly remarkable for such as believe only in the evi- 
dence of the senses.” 


THE WALK TO CHURCH. 


335 


"As if having searched into the innermost recesses 
of the body, and not having found a soul, they con- 
sidered themselves justified in declaring there was none.” 

“ Just so.” 

“ Well, that is true of the commonplace amongst 
them, I do believe. You will find the exceptions have 
been men of fine minds and characters — not such as he 
of whom Chaucer says, — 

His study was but little on the Bible $ 

for if you look at the rest of the description of the man, 
you will find that he was in alliance with his apothecary 
for their mutual advantage, that he was a money-loving 
man, and that some of Chaucer’s keenest irony is spent 
on him in an off-hand, quiet manner. Compare the 
tone in which he writes of the doctor of physic, with. 
the profound reverence wherewith he bows himself be- 
fore the poor country parson.” 

Here Wynnie spoke, though with some tremor in her 
voice. 

“ I never know, papa, what people mean by talking 
about childhood in that way. I never seem to have 
been a bit younger and more innocent than I am.” 

“ Don’t you remember a time, Wynnie, when the 
things about you — the sky and the earth, say — seemed 
to you much grander than they seem now 1 You are 
old enough to have lost something.” 

She thought for a little while before she answered. 

“ My dreams were, I know. I cannot say so of any- 
thing else.” 


33 * 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


I in my turn had to be silent, for I did not see the 
true answer, though I was sure there was one some- 
where, if I could only find it. All I could reply, how- 
ever, even after I had meditated a good while, was — and 
perhaps, after all, it was the best thing I could have 
said — 

“ Then you must make a good use of your dreams, 
my child.” 

‘Why, papal” 

“ Because they are the only memorials of childhood 
you have left.” 

“ How am I to make a good use of them? I don’t 
know what to do with my silly old dreams.” 

But she gave a sigh as she spoke that testified her 
silly old dreams had a charm for her still. 

“ If your dreams, my child, have ever testified to you 
of a condition of things beyond that which you see 
around you ; if they have been to you the hints of a 
wonder and glory beyond what visits you now, you must 
not call them silly, for they are just what the scents of 
Paradise borne on the air were to Adam and Eve as 
they delved and spun, reminding them that they must 
aspire yet again through labour into that childhood of 
obedience which is the only paradise of humanity — into 
that oneness with the will of the Father, which our race 
oui individual selves, need just as much as if we had per- 
sonally fallen with Adam, and from which we fall every 
time we are disobedient to the voice of the Father within 
our souls — to the conscience which is his making and his 
witness. If you have nad no childhood, my Wynnie, 


THE WALK TO CHURCH. 


337 


yet permit your old father to say that everything I see in 
you indicates more strongly in you than in most people 
that it is this childhood after which you are blindly long- 
ing, without which you find that life is hardly to be en- 
dured. Thank God for your dreams, my child. In him 
you will find that the essence of those dreams is fulfilled. 
We are saved by hope, Turner. Never man hoped too 
much, or repented that he had hoped. The plague is 
that we don’t hope in God half enough. The very fact 
that hope is strength, and strength the outcome, the 
body of life, shows that hope is at one with life, with 
the very essence of what says * I am * — yea, of what 
doubts and says 1 Am I ? and therefore is reasonable 
to creatures who cannot even doubt save in that they 
live.” 

By this time, for I have of course, only given the 
outlines, or rather salient points, of our conversation, we 
had reached the church, where, if I found the sermon 
neither healing nor inspiring, I found the prayers full of 
hope and consolation. They at least are safe beyond 
human caprice, conceit, or incapacity. Upon them, too, 
the man who is distressed at the thought of how little 
of the needful food he had been able to provide for his 
people, may fall back for comfort, in the thought that 
there at least was what ought to have done them good, 
what it was well worth their while to go to church for. 
But 1 did think they were too long for any individual 
Christian soul to sympathise with from beginning to end, 
that is, to respond to, like organ-tube to the fingered 
key, in every touch of the utterance of tne general 


3.38 


THE SEABOARD rAF.ISH. 


Chiistian soul. For my reader must remember that it 
is one thing to read prayers and another to respond ; 
and that I had had very few opportunities of being in 
the position of the latter duty. I had had suspicions 
before, and now they were confirmed — that the present 
crowding of services was most inexpedient. And as I 
pondered on the matter, instead of trying to go on pray- 
ing after I had already uttered my soul, which is but a 
heathenish attempt after much speaking, I thought how 
our Lord had given us such a short prayer to pray, and 
I began to wonder when or how the services came to be 
so heaped the one on the back of the other as they now 
were. No doubt many people defended them ; no 
doubt many people could sit them out ; but how many 
people could pray from beginning to end of them 1 On 
this point we had some talk as we went home. Wynnie 
was opposed to any change of the present use on the 
ground that we should only have the longer sermons. 

“ Still,” I said, “ I do not think even that so great an 
evil. A sensitive conscience will not reproach itself so 
much for not listening to the whole of a sermon, as for 
kneeling in prayer and not praying. I think myself, 
however, that after the prayers are over, every one should 
be at liberty to go out and leave the sermon unheard, if 
he pleases. I think the result would be in the end a 
good one both for parson and people. It would break 
through the deadness of this custom, this use and wont 
Many a young mind is turned, for life against 'he in- 
fluences of church-going — one of the most sacred in- 
fluences when pure, that is, unmingled with non essen- 





THE WALK TO CHURCH 


339 


tials — just by the feeling that he must do so and so, that 
he must go through a certain round of duty. It is a 
willing service that the lord wants ; no forced devotion? 
are either acceptable to him, or other than injurious ta 
the worshipper, if such he can be called.” 

After an early dinner, I said to Turner,*— 

“ Come out with me, and we will read that poem of 
Vaughan's in which I broke down to-day.” 

“ Oh, papa ! ” said Connie, in a tone of injury from 
the sofa, 

“ What is it, my dear 1 ” I asked. 

“Wouldn’t it be as good for us as for Mr Turner]” 

“ Quite, my dear. Well, I will keep it for the even 
ing, and meantime Mr Turner and I will go and see il 
we can find out anything about the change in the church- 
service.” 

For I had thrown into my bag as I left the rectory a 
copy of “The Clergyman’s Vade Mecum” — a treatise 
occupied with the externals of the churchman’s relations 
—in which I soon came upon the following passage : — 

“ So then it appears that the common practice of read- 
ing all three together, is an innovation, and if an ancient 
or infirm clergyman do read them at two or three several 
times, he is more strictly conformable : however, this is 
much better than to omit any part of the liturgy, or to 
read all three offices into one, as is now commonly done, 
without any pause or distinction.” 

“ On the part of the clergyman, you see, Turner,” I 
said, when I had finished reading the whole passage to 
him. “ There is no care taken of the delicate women of 


34=> 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


the congregation, but only of the ancient or infirm clergy- 
man. And the logic, to say the least, is rather queer : 
is it only in virtue of his antiquity and infirmity that he 
is to be upheld in being more strictly conformable ? The 
writer’s honesty has its heels trodden upon by the fear 
of giving offence. Nevertheless there should perhaps be 
at certain slowness to admit change, even back to a more 
ancient form.” 

“I don’t know that I can quite agree with you 
there,” said Turner. “If the form is better, no one 
should hesitate to advocate the change. If it is worse, 
then slowness is not sufficient : utter obstinacy is the 
right condition.” 

“ You are right, Turner. For the right must be the 
rule, and where the right is beyond our understanding 
or our reach, then the better , as indeed not only right 
compared with the other, but the sole ascent towards 
the right.” 

In the evening I took Henry Vaughan’s poems into 
the common sitting-room, and to Connie’s great delight 
read the whole of the lovely, though unequal little poem, 
called “ The Retreat,” in recalling which I had failed in 
the morning. She was especially delighted with the 
“white celestial thought,” and the “bright shoots of 
everlastingness.” Then I gave a few lines from another 
yet more unequal poem, worthy in themselves of the 
best of the other. I quote the first strophe entire. 

Childhood. 

• I cannot reach it ; and my striving eye 
Dazzles at it, as at eternity. 


THE WALK TO CHURCH, 


34 « 


Were now that chronicle alive, 

Those white designs which children driv^ 

And the thoughts of each harmless hour. 

With their content too in my power, 

Quickly would I make my path even. 

And by mere playing go to heaven. 

And yet the practice worldlings call 
Business and weighty action all. 

Checking the poor child for his play. 

But gravely cast themselves away. 

An age of mysteries ! which lie 
Must live twice that would God’s face sce^ 

Which angels guard, and with it play, 

Angels ! which foul men drive away. 

How do I study now, and scan 
Thee more than ere I studied man. 

And only see through a long night 
Thy edges and thy bordering light ! 

0 for thy centre and midday ! 

For sure that is the narrow way! n 

* For of such is the kingdom of heaven,” said my wife 
softly, as I closed the book. 

“ May I have the book, papa ? ” said Connie, holding 
out her thin white cloud of a hand to take it. 

“ Certainly, my child. And if Wynnie would read it 
with you, she will feel more of the truth of what Mr 
Percivale was saying to her about finish. Here are the 
finest, grandest thoughts, set forth sometimes with such 
carelessness, at least such lack of neatness, that, instead 
of their falling on the mind with all their power of 
loveliness, they are like a beautiful face disfigured with 
patches, and, what is worse, they put the mind out of 


343 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


the right, quiet, unquestioning, open mood, which is the 
only fit one for the reception of such true things as 
are embodied in the poems. But they are too beautiful 
after all to be more than a little spoiled by such a lack 
of the finish with which Art ends off all her labours. A 
gentleman, however, thinks it of no little importance to 
have his nails nice as well as his lace and his shirt" 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


TILE OLD CASTLE. 

HE place Turner had chosen suited us a0 
so well, that after attending to my duties on 
the two following Sundays at Kilkhaven, I 
returned on the Monday or Tuesday to the 
farmhouse. But Turner left us in the middle of the 
second week, for he could not be longer absent from his 
charge at home, and we missed him much. It was 
some days before Connie was quite as cheerful again as 
usual. I do not mean that she was in the least gloomy 
— that she never was ; she was only a little less merry. 
But whether it was that Turner had opened our eyes, or 
that she had visibly improved since he allowed her to 
make a little change in her posture — certainly she 
appeared to us to have made considerable progress, and 
every now and then we were discovering some little 
proof of the fact. One evening, while we were still at 
the farm, she startled us by calling out suddenly, — 



344 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ Papa, papa ! I moved my big toe ! I did indeed.” 

We were all about her in a moment. But I saw that 
she was excited, and fearing a reaction I sought to calm 
her. 

u But, my dear,” I said, as quietly as I could, “ you 
are probably still aware that you are possessed of two 
big toes : which of them are we to congratulate on this 
first stride in the march of improvement V* 

She broke out in the merriest laugh. A pause fol- 
lowed in which her face wore a puzzled expression. 
Then she said all at once, “ Papa, it is very odd, but 
I can’t tell which of them,” and burst into tears. I was 
afraid that I had done more harm than good. 

“ It is not of the slightest consequence, my child,” I 
said. “ You have had so little communication with the 
twins of late, that it is no wonder you should not be 
able to tell the one from the other.” 

She smiled again through her sobs, but was silent, 
with shining face, for the rest of the evening. Our 
hopes took a fresh start, but " r e heard no more from 
her of her power over her big toe. As often as I in- 
quired she said she was afraid she had made a mistake, 
for she had not had another hint of its existence. Still 
I thought it could not have been a fancy, and I would 
cleave to my belief in the good sign. 

Percivale called to see us several times, but always 
appeared anxious not to intrude more of his society 
upon us than might be agreeable. He grew in my 
regard, however ; and at length I asked him if he would 
assist me in another surprise which I meditated for my 


THE OLD CASTLE. 


34 $ 


companions, and this time for Connie as well, and which 
I hoped would prevent the painful influences of the 
sight of the sea from returning upon them when they 
went back to Kilkhaven : they must see the sea from a 
quite different shore first In a word I would take 
them to Tintagel, of the near position of which they 
were not aware, although in some of our walks we had 
seen the ocean in the distance. An early day was fixed 
for carrying out our project, and I proceeded to get 
everything ready. The only difficulty was to find a 
carriage in the neighbourhood suitable for receiving 
Connie’s litter. In this, however, I at length succeeded, 
and on the morning of a glorious day of blue and gold, 
we set out for the little village of Trevenna, now far 
better known than at the time of which I write. Connie 
had been out every day since she came, now in one part 
of the fields, now in another, enjoying the expanse of 
earth and sky, but she had had no drive, and conse- 
quently had seen no variety of scenery. Therefore, 
believing she was now thoroughly able to bear it, I 
quite reckoned of the good she would get from the 
inevitable excitement. We resolved, however, after 
finding how much she enjoyed the few miles’ drive, that 
we would not demand more of her strength that day, 
and therefore put up at the little inn, where, after order- 
ing dinner, Percivale and I left the ladies, and sallied 
forth to reconnoitre. 

We walked through the village and down the valley 
beyond, sloping steeply between hills towards the sea, 
the opening closed at the end by the blue of the ocean 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


34^ 


below, and the more ethereal blue of the sky above. 
But when we reached the mouth of the valley we found 
that we were not yet on the shore, for a precipice lay 
between us and the little beach below. On the left a 
great peninsula of rock stood out into the sea, upon 
which rose the ruins of the keep of Tintagel, while 
behind on the mainland stood the ruins of the castle 
itself, connected with the other only by a narrow isthmus. 
We had read that this peninsula had once been an island, 
and that the two parts of the castle were formerly con- 
nected by a drawbridge. Looking up at the great gap 
which now divided the two portions, it seemed at first 
impossible to believe that they had ever been thus 
united ; but a little reflection cleared up the mystery. 
The fact was, that the isthmus, of half the height of the 
two parts connected by it, had been formed entirely by 
the fall of portions of the rock and soil on each side 
into the narrow dividing space, through which the waters 
of the Atlantic had been wont to sweep. And now the 
fragments of walls stood on the very verge of the preci- 
pice, and showed that large portions of the castle itseli 
had fallen into the gulf between. We turned to the left 
along the edge of the rock, and so by a narrow path 
reached and crossed to the other side of the isthmus. 
We then found that the path led to the foot of the rock, 
formerly island, of the keep, and thence in a zigzag up 
the face of it to the top. We followed it, and after a 
great climb reached a door in a modern battlement. 
Entering, we found ourselves amidst grass, and ruins 
haggard with age. We turned and surveyed the path 


THE OLD CASTLE. 


347 


by which we had come. It was steep and somewhat 
difficult. But the outlook was glorious. It was indeed 
one of God’s mounts of vision upon which we stood. 
The thought, “ Oh that Connie could see this !” was 
swelling in my heart, when Percivale broke the silence — » 
not with any remark on the glory around us, but with 
the commonplace question — 

“ You haven’t got your man with you, I think, Mr 
Walton V 

“ No,” I answered ; “ we thought it better to leave 
him to look after the boys.” 

He was silent for a few minutes, while I gazed is 
delight. 

“ Don’t you think,” he said, “ it would be possible to 
bring Miss Constance up here 1” 

I almost started at the idea, and had not replied 
before he resumed : 

“ It would be something for her to recur to with 
delight all the rest of her life.” 

“ It would, indeed. But it is impossible.” 

“ I do not think so — if you would allow me the 
honour to assist you. I think we could do it perfectly 
between us.” 

I was again silent for a while. Looking down on the 
way we had come, it seemed an almost dreadful under- 
taking. Percivale spoke again. 

" As we shall come here to-morrow, we need not ex- 
plore the place now. Shall we go down at once and 
observe the whole path, with a view to the practicability 
•f carrying her up 1 ” 


548 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ There can be no objection to that,” I answered, as 
a little hope, and courage with it, began to dawn in my 
heart. “ But you must allow it does not look very prac- 
ticable.” 

“Perhaps it would seem more so to you, if you had 
come up with the idea in your head all the way, as l 
did. Any path seems more difficult in looking back than 
at the time when the difficulties themselves have to be 
met and overcome.” 

“Yes, but then you must remember that we have to 
take the way back whether we will or no, if we once take 
the way forward.” 

“True; and now I will go down with the descent in 
my head as well as under my feet.” 

“Well, there can be no harm in reconnoitring it at 
least. Let us go.” 

“You know we can rest almost as often as we please," 
said Percivale, and turned to lead the way. 

It certainly was steep, and required care even in our 
own descent; but for a man who had climbed moun- 
tains, as I had done in my youth, it could hardly be 
called difficult even in middle age. By the time we had 
got again into the valley load I was all but convinced of 
the practicability of the proposal I was a little vexed, 
however, I must confess that a stranger should have 
thought of giving such a pic asure to Connie, when the 
bare wish that she might have enjoyed it had alone arisen 
in my mind I comforted myself with the reflection that 
this was one of the ways in which we were to be weaned 
fron the world and knit the faster to our fellows. For 


THE OLD CASTLE. 


349 


even the middle-aged, in the decay of their daring, must 
look for the fresh thought and the fresh impulse to the 
youth which follows at their heels in the march of life. 
Their part is to will the relation and the obligation, and 
so, by love to and faith in the young, keep themselves in 
the line along which the electric current flows, till at 
length they too shall once more be young and daring in 
the strength of the Lord. A man must always seek to 
rise above his moods and feelings, to let them move 
within him, but not allow them to storm or gloom around 
him. By the time we reached home we had agreed to 
make the attempt, and to judge by the path to the foot 
of the rock, which was difficult in parts, whether we 
should be likely to succeed, without danger, in attempt- 
ing the rest of the way and the following descent As 
soon as we had arrived at this conclusion, I felt so happy 
in the prospect that I grew quite merry, especially after 
we had further agreed that, both for the sake of her nerves 
and for the sake of the lordly surprise, we should bind 
Connie's eyes so that she should see nothing till we 
had placed her in a certain position, concerning the pre- 
ferableness of which we were not of two minds. 

“ What mischief have you two been about 1 ” said my 
wife, as we entered our room in the inn, where the cloth 
was already laid for dinner. u You look just like two 
school-boys that have been laying some plot, and can 
hardly hold their tongues about it” 

“ We have been enjoying our little walk amazingly," 
I answered. “ So much so, that we mean to set out fof 
another the moment dinner is over." 


35 ° 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ I hope you will take Wynnie with you then.” 

“ Or you, my love,” I returned. 

u No ; I will stay with Connie.” 

“ Very well. You, and Connie too, shall go out to 
morrow, for we have found a place we want to take you 
to. An?, indeed, I believe it was our anticipation of the 
pleasure you and she would have iu the view that made 
us so merry when you accused us of plotting mischief.” 

My wife replied only with a loving look, and dinner 
appearing at this moment, we sat down a happy party. 

When that was over — and a very good dinner it was. ; 
just what I like, homely in material but admirable in 
cooking — Wynnie and Percivale and I set out again. 
For as Percivale and I came back in the morning we had 
seen the church standing far aloft and aloof on the other 
side of the little valley, and we wanted to go to it. It 
was rather a steep climb, and Wynnie accepted Perci- 
vale’s offered arm. I led the way, therefore, and left 
them to follow — not so far in the rear, however, but that 
I could take a share in the conversation. It was some 
little time before any arose, and it was Wynnie who led 
the way into it 

“ What kind of things do you like best to paint, Mr 
Percivale 1 ” she asked. 

lie hesitated for several seconds, which between a 
question and an answer look so long, that most people 
would call them minutes. 

“ I would rather you should see some of my pictures 
• — I should prefer that to answering your question,” he 
said, a t lengtn. 


THE OLD CASTLE. 


352 


44 But I have seen some of your p?. 2 *wy ; w j.b® re- 
tumeds 

“ Pardon me. Indeed you have not, Miss Walton.* 
‘At least I have seen some of your sketches and 
studies.” 

44 Some of my sketches — none of my studies.* 

“ But you make use of your sketches for your pictures, 
do yon not 1 * 

44 Never of such as you have seen. They are only a 
slight antidote to my pictures.” 

44 1 cannot understand you.” 

I do not wonder at that. But I would rather, I re- 
peat, say nothing about my pictures till you see some of 
them.” 

44 But how am I to have that pleasure, then I ” 

44 You go to London, sometimes, do you not?” 

44 Very rarely. More rarely still when the Royal Aca- 
demy is open.” 

44 That does not matter much. My pictures are sel- 
dom to be found there.” 

44 Do you not care to send them there ? ” 

44 1 send one at least every year. But they are rarely 
accepted.” 

44 Why 1* 

This was a very improper question, I thought ; but if 
Wynnie had thought so she would not have put it He 
hesitated a little before he replied. 

44 It is hardly for me to say why,” he answered ; 
‘but I cannot wonder much at it, considering the sub- 
jects I choose. — But I daresay,” he added, in a lightd 


35 * 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


tone, “ after all, that has little to do with it, and there is 
something about the things themselves that precludes a 
favourable judgment. I avoid thinking about it A man 
ought to try to look at his own work as if it were none 
of his, but not as with the eyes of other people. That 
is an impossibility, and the attempt a bewilderment. It 
is with his own eyes he must look, with his own judg- 
ment he must judge. The only effort is to get it set far 
away enough from him to be able to use his own eyes 
and his own judgment upon it.” 

“ I think I see what you mean. A man has but his 
own eyes and his own judgment To look with those of 
other people is but a fancy.” 

“ Quite so. You understand me quite.” 

He said no more in explanation of his rejection 
by the Academy. Till we reached the church, nothing 
more of significance passed between them. 

What a waste, bare churchyard that was ! It had two 
or three lych-gates, but they had no roofs. They were 
just small enclosures, with the low stone tables to rest 
the living from the weight of the dead, while the clergy- 
man, as the keeper of heaven’s wardrobe, came forth to 
receive the garment they restored — to be laid aside as 
having ended its work, as having been worn done in the 
winds, and rains, and labours of the world. Not a tree 
stood in that churchyard. Rank grass was the sole 
covering of the soil heaved up with the dead beneath. 
What blasts from the awful space of the sea must rush 
athwart the undefended garden ! The ancient chuTch 
stood in the midst, with its low, strong, square towei* 


THE OLD CASTLE. 


353 


and its long, narrow nave, the ridge bowed with age, 
like the back of a horse worn out in the service of man, 
and its little homely chancel, like a small cottage that 
had leaned up against its end for shelter from the western 
blasts. It was locked, and we could not enter. But of 
all world-worn, sad-looking churches, that one — sad, even 
in the sunset — was the dreariest I had ever beheld. 
Surely, it needed che gospel of the resurrection fervently 
preached therein, to keep it from sinking to the dust 
with dismay and weariness. Such a soul alone could 
keep it from vanishing utterly of dismal old age. Near 
it was one huge mound of grass-grown rubbish, looking 
like the grave where some former church of the dead had 
been buried, when it could stand erect no longer before 
the onsets of Atlantic winds. I walked round and 
round it, gathering its architecture, and peeping in at 
every window I could reach. Suddenly I was aware 
that I was alone. Returning to the other side, I found 
that Percivale was seated on the churchyard wall, next 
the sea — it would have been less dismal had it stood im- 
mediately on the cliffs, but they were at some little dis- 
tance beyond bare downs and rough stone walls : he 
was sketching the place, and Wynnie stood beside 
him, looking over his shoulder. I did not interrupt him, 
but walked among the graves, reading the poor memorials 
or the dead, and wondering how many of the words o< 
laudation that were inscribed on their tombs were 
spoken of them while they were yet alive. Yet surely, 
in the lives of those to whom they applied the least, 

there had been moments when the tiue nature, the 

z 


354 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


nature God had given them, broke forth in faith and 
tenderness, and would have justified the words inscribed 
on their gravestones ! I was yet wandering and read 
ing, and stumbling over the mounds, when my com- 
panions joined me, and, without a word, we walked out 
of the churchyard. We were nearly home before one of 
us spoke. 

“ That church is oppressive,” said Percivale. “ It looks 
like a great sepulchre, a place built only for the dead— 
the church of the dead.” 

“ It is only that it partakes with the living,” I returned; 
“ suffers with them the buffetings of life, outlasts them, 
but shows, like the shield of the Red-Cross Knight, the 
‘ old dints of deep wounds.’ ” 

“ Still, is it not a dreary place to choose for a church 
to stand in 1 ” 

“The church must stand everywhere. There is no 
region into which it must not, ought not to enter. If 
it refuses any earthly spot, it is shrinking from its calling. 
Here this one stands for the sea as for the land, high- 
uplifted, looking out over the waters as a sign of the 
haven from all storms, the rest in God. And down be- 
neath in its storehouse lie the bodies of men — you saw 
the grave of some of them on the other side — flung 
ashore from the gulfing sea. It may be a weakness, but 
one would rather have the bones of his friend laid in the 
*till Sabbath of the churchyard earth, than sweeping and 
swaying about as Milton imagines the bones of his friend 
Edward King, in that wonderful ‘ Lycidas/” Then I 
toid them the conversation I had had with the sexton at 


THE OLD CASTLE. 


355 


Kilkhaven. “ But,” I went on, “ these fancies are only 
the ghostly mists that hang about the eastern hills before 
the sun rises. We shall look down on all that with a 
smile by and by ; for the Lord tells us that if we believe 
in him we shall never die.” 

By this time we were back once more at the inn. We 
gave Connie a description of what we had seen. 

“ What a brave old church ! ” said Connie. 

The next day I awoke very early, full of the antici- 
pated attempt. I got up at once, found the weather most 
promising, and proceeded first of all to have a look at 
Connie’s litter, and see that it was quite sound. Satisfied 
of this, I rejoiced in the contemplation of its lightness 
and strength. 

After breakfast I went to Connie’s room, and told 
her that Mr Percivale and I had devised a treat foi 
her. Her face shone at once. 

“ But we want to do it our own way.” 

“ Of course, papa,” she answered. 

“ Will you let us tie your eyes up 1 * 

" Yes ; and my ears and my hands too. It would be 
no good tying my feet, when I don’t know one big toe 
from the other.” 

And she laughed merrily. 

“ We ’ll try to keep up the talk all the way, so that you 
shan’t weary of the journey. 

“You're going to carry me somewhere with my eyes 
tied up. Oh ! how jolly ! And then I shall see some- 
thing all at once ! Jolly ! jolly! — Getting tired !” she re- 
peated. “Even the wind on my face would be plea- 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


3 5 « 


sure enough for half a day. I shan't get tired so soon 
as you will— you dear, kind papa ! I am afraid I shall 
be dreadfully heavy. But I shan’t jerk your arms much. 
I will lie so still ! ” 

“ And you won’t mind letting Mr Percivale help me 
to carry you?” 

“No Why should I, if he doesn’t mind it? He 
looks strong enough ; and I am sure he is nice, and 
won’t think me heavier than I am.” 

“ Very well, then. I will send mamma and Wynnie 
to dress you at once; and we shall set out as soon as you 
are ready.” 

She clapped her hands with delight, then caught me 
round the neck and gave me one of my own kisses as 
she called the best she had, and began to call as loud as 
she could on her mamma and Wynnie to come and dress 
her. 

It was indeed a glorious morning. The wind came in 
little wafts, like veins of cool, white silver amid the great 
warm, yellow gold of the sunshine. The sea lay before 
us, a mound of blue closing up the end of the valley, as 
if overpowered into quietness by the lordliness of the sun 
overhead ; and the hili-s between which we went lay like 
great sheep, with green wool, basking in the blissful heat. 
The gleam from the waters came up the pass ; the grand 
castle crowned the left-hand steep, seeming to warm its 
old bones, like the ruins of some awful megatherium in 
the lighted air ; one white sail sped like a glad thought 
across the spandrel of the sea ; the shadows of the rocks 
lay over our path, like transient, cool, benignant death* 


THE OLD CASTLE. 


357 


through which we had to pass again and again to yet 
higher glory beyond ; and one lark was somewhere in 
whose little breast the whole world was reflected as in 
the convex mirror of a dewdrop, where it swelled so that 
he could not hold it, but let it out again through his 
throat, metamorphosed into music, which he poured 
forth over all as the libation on the outspread altar of 
worship. 

And of all this we talked to Connie as we went ; and 
every now and then she would clap her hards gently in 
the fulness of her delight, although she beheld the splen- 
dour only as with her ears, or from the kisses of the wind 
on her cheeks. But she seemed, since her accident, to 
have approached that condition which Milton represents 
Samson as longing for in his blindness, wherein the sight 
should be 

“ through all parts diffused, 

That she might look at will through every pore.** 

I had, however, arranged with the rest of the com- 
pany that the moment we reached the cliff over the 
shore, and turned to the left to cross the isthmus, the 
conversation should no longer be about the things around 
us : and especially I warned my wife and Wynnie that 
no exclamation of surprise or delight should break from 
them befDre Connie’s eyes were uncovered. I had said 
nothing to either of them about the difficulties of the 
way, that, seeing us take them as ordinary things, they 
might take them so too, and not be uneasy. 

We never stopped till we reached the foot of the pen* 
insula, n'ee island, upon which the keep of Tintagel stand* 


3S» 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


There we set Connie down, to take breath and ease oui 
arms before we began the arduous way. 

“ Now, now !” said Connie, eagerly, lifting her hands 
hi the belief that we were on the point of undoing the 
bandage from her eyes. 

“ No, no, my love, not yet,” I said, and she lay still 
again, only she looked more eager than before. 

“ I am afraid I have tired out you and Mr Percivale, 
papa,” she said. 

Percivale laughed so amusedly, that she rejoined 
roguishly — 

“ Oh yes ! I know every gentleman is a Hercules — at 
least, he chooses to be considered one ! But, notwith- 
standing my firm faith in the fact, I have a little womanly 
conscience left that is hard to hoodwink.” 

There was a speech for my wee Connie to make I 
The best answer and the best revenge was to lift her 
arid go on. This we did, trying as well as we might to 
•prevent the difference of level between us from tilting 
the litter too much for her comfort 

* Where are you going, papa 1 ” she said once, but 
without a sign of fear in her voice, as a little slip I made 
lowered my end of the litter suddenly. “ You must be 
going up a steep place. Don’t hurt yourself, dear papa.” 

We had changed our positions, and were now carry- 
ing her, head foremost, up the hill Percivale led, and 
I followed. Now I could see every change on her 
lovely face, and it made me strong to endure ; for I did 
find it hard work, I confess, to get to the top. It 
lay like a little sunny pool on which all the cloudy 


THE OLD CASTLE. 


35 # 


thoughts that moved in some unseen heaven cast ex- 
quisitely delicate changes of light and shade as they 
floated over it. Percivale strode on as if he bore a 
feather behind him. I did wish we were at the top, for 
my arms began to feel like iron-cables, stiff and stark — 
only I was afraid of my fingers giving way. My heart 
was beating uncomfortably too. But Percivale, I felt 
almost inclined to quarrel with him before it was over, 
he strode on so unconcernedly, turning every corner of 
the zigzag where I expected him to propose a halt, and 
striding on again, as if there could be no pretence for 
any change of procedure. But I held out, strengthened 
by the play on my daughter’s face, delicate as the play 
on an opal — one that inclines more to the milk than the 
fire. 

When at length we turned in through the gothic door 
in the battlemented wall, and set our lovely burden down 
upon the grass — 

Percivale,” I said, forgetting the proprieties in the 
affected humour of being angry with him, so glad was I 
that we had her at length on the mount of glory, “ why 
did you go on walking like a castle, and pay no heed to 
me?” 

“You didn’t speak, did you Mr Walton ?” he returned, 
with just a shadow of solicitude in the question. 

“No. Of course not,” I rejoined. 

“ Oh, then,” he returned, in a tone of relief " how 
could I ? You were my captain : how could I give in 
so long as you were holding on ? ” 

I am afraid the Percivale , without the Mister, came 


36 o 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


again and again after this, though I pulled myself up for 
it as often as I caught myself. 

“Now, papa! ” said Connie from the grass. 

“ Not yet, my dear. Wait till your mamma and 
Wynnie come. Let us go and meet them, Mr Perci- 
vale.” 

“ Oh yes, do, papa. Leave me alone here without 
knowing where I am or what kind of a place I am in. 
I should like to know how it feels. I have never been 
alone in all my life.” 

“Very well, my dear,” I said; and Percivale and I 
left her alone in the ruins. 

We found Ethelwyn toiling up with Wynnie helping 
her all she could. 

“Dear Harry,” she said, “how could you think of 
bringing Connie up such an awful place 1 I wonder you 
dared to do it.” 

e: It's done, you see, wife,” I answered, “thanks to Mr 
Percivale, who has nearly torn the breath out of me. 
But now we must get you up, and you will say that to 
6ee Connie’s delight, not to mention your own, is quite 
wages for the labour.” 

“ Isn’t she afraid to find herself so high up ? ” 

44 She knows nothing about it yet.” 

“ You do not mean you have left the child there with 
her eves tied up.” 

“ To be sure We could not uncover them before you 
came. It would spoil half the pleasure.” 

“ Do let us make haste then. It is surely dangerou* 
to leave her so.” 




















































BUT SHE HEARD OUR STEPS 







THE OLD CASTLE. 


36 l 


“ Not in the least ; but she must be getting tired ol 
the darkness. Take my arm now.” 

“ Don’t you think Mrs Walton had better take my 
arm 1 ” said Percivale, “ and then you can put your hand 
on her back, and help her a little that way.” 

We tried the plan, found it a good one, and soon 
v eached the top. The moment our eyes fell upon Connie, 
we could see that she had found the place neither fear- 
ful nor lonely. The sweetest ghost of a smile hovered 
on her pale face, which shone in the shadow of the old 
gateway of the keep, with light from within her own 
sunny soul. She lay in such still expectation, that you 
would have thought she had just fallen asleep after re- 
ceiving an answer to a prayer, reminding me of a little- 
known sonnet of Wordsworth’s, in which he describes as 
the type of Death — 

the face of one 

Sleeping alone within a mossy cave. 

With her face up to heaven ; that seemed to have 
Pleasing remembrance of a thought foregone 5 
A lovely beauty in a summer grave.* 

But she heard our steps, and her face awoke. 

“ Is mamma come?” 

“Yes, my darling. I am here,” said her mother. 
* How do you feel ? ” 

“ Perfectly well, mamma, thank you. Now, papa ! 9 

“ One moment more, my love. Now, Percivale.” 

We carried her to the spot we had agreed upon, and 


• Miscellaneous Sonnets. Part L 


362 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


while we held her a little inclined that she might see 
the better, her mother undid the bandage from her 
head. 

“ Hold your hands over her eyes, a little way from 
them,” I said to her as she untied the handkerchief, 
“ that the light may reach them by degrees, and not 
blind her ” 

Ethelwyn did so for a few moments, then removed 
them. Still for a moment or two more, it was plain 
from her look of utter bewilderment, that all was a con- 
fused mass of light and colour. Then she gave a little 
cry, and to my astonishment, almost fear, half rose to a 
sitting posture. One moment more, and she laid herself 
gently back, and wept and sobbed. 

And now I may admit my reader to a share, though 
at best but a dim reflex in my poor words, of the glory 
that made her weep. 

Through the gothic-arched door in the battlemented 
wall, which stood on the very edge of the precipitous 
descent, so that nothing of the descent was seen and 
the door was as a framework to the picture, Connie saw 
a great gulf at her feet, full to the brim of a splendour 
of light and colour. Before her rose the great ruins of 
rock and castle, the ruin of rock with castle; rough 
stone below, clear green happy grass above, even to the 
verge of the abrupt and awful precipice ; over it the 
sun mer sky so clear that it must have been clarified 
by sorrow and thought ; at the foot of the rocks, hun- 
dreds of feet below, the blue waters breaking in white 
upon the dark gray sands ; all full of the gladness of the 


THE OLD CASTLE. 


3«3 


sun overflowing in speechless delight, and reflected in 
fresh gladness from stone, and water, and flower, like 
new springs of light rippling forth from the earth itself 
to swell the universal tide of glory — all this seen through 
the narrow gothic archway of a door in a wall — up— - 
down — on either hand. But the main marvel was the 
look sheer below into the abyss full of light, and air, and 
colour, its sides lined with rock and grass, and its bottom 
lined with blue ripples and sand. Was it any wondei 
that my Connie should cry aloud when the vision dawned 
upon her, and then weep to ease a heart ready to burst 
with delight 1 “ O Lord God ! ” I said, almost involun- 
tarily, “ thou art very rich. Thou art the one poet, the 
one maker. We worship thee. Make but our souls as 
full of glory in thy sight as this chasm is to our eyes 
glorious with the forms which thou hast cloven and 
carved out of nothingness, and we shall be worthy to 
worship thee, O Lord, our God.” For I was carried 
beyond myself with delight, and with sympathy with 
Connie’s delight and with the calm worship of gladness 
in my wife’s countenance. But when my eye fell on 
Wynnie, I saw a trouble mingled with her admiration, 

3 self-accusation, I think, that she did not and could not 
enjoy it more ; and when I turned from her, there were 
the eyes of Percivale fixed on me in wonderment ; and 
for the moment I felt as David must have felt when, in 
his dance of undignified delight that he had got the ark 
nome again, he saw the contemptuous eyes of Michal 
fixed on him from the window. But I could not leave 
it so. I said to him— coldly I daresay, — 


3^4 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


M Excuse me, Mr Percivale ; I forgot for the moment 
that I was not amongst my own family.” 

Percivale took his hat off. 

“Forgive my seeming rudeness, Mr Walton. I was 
half envying and half wondering. You would not be 
surprised at my unconscious behaviour if you had seen 
as much of the wrong side of the stuff as I have seen in 
London.” 

I had some idea of what he meant ; but this was no 
time to enter upon a discussion. I could only say, — 

“ My heart was full, Mr Percivale, and I let it over* 
flow.” 

“ Let me at least share in its overflow,” he rejoined, 
and nothing more passed on the subject 

For the next ten minutes we stood in absolute silence. 
We had set Connie down on the grass again, but propped 
up so that she could see through the doorway. And she 
lay in still ecstasy. But there was more to be seen ere 
we descended. There was the rest of the little islet with 
its crop of down-grass, on which the horses of all the 
knights of King Arthur’s round table might have fed for 
a week— yes, for a fortnight, without, by any means, en- 
countering the short commons of war. There were the 
ruins of the castle so built of plates of the laminated 
stcne of the rocks on which they stood, and so woven in, 
or more properly incorporated with, the outstanding 
rocks themselves, that in some parts I found it impos- 
sible to tell which was building and which was rock — the 
walls themselves seeming like a growth out of the island 
itselfj so perfectly were they in harmony with, and in 


THE OLD CASTLE. 


3M 


kind the same as, the natural ground upon which and of 
which they had been constructed. And this would seem 
to me to be the perfection of architecture. The work of 
man s hands should be so in harmony with the place 
where it stands that it must look as if it had grown out 
of the soil. But the walls were in some parts so thin 
that one wondered how they could have stood so long. 
They must have been built before the time of any for- 
midable artillery — enough only for defence from arrows. 
But then the island was nowhere commanded, and its 
own steep cliffs would be more easily defended than any 
erections upon it. Clearly the intention was that no 
enemy should thereon find rest for the sole of his foot, 
for if he was able to land, farewell to the notion of any 
further defence. Then there was outside the walls the 
little chapel — such a tiny chapel ! of which little more 
than the foundation remained, with the ruins of the altar 
still standing, and outside the chancel, nestling by its 
wall, a coffin hollowed in the rock ; then the church- 
yard a little way off full of graves, which, I presume, 
would have vanished long ago were it not that the very 
graves were founded on the rock. There still stood old 
worn-out headstones of thin slate, but no memorials were 
left. Then there was the fragment of arched passage under- 
ground laid open to the air in the centre of the islet ; and 
last, and grandest of all, the awful edges of the rock, 
broken by time, and carved by the winds and the waters 
into grotesque shapes and threatening forms. Over all the 
surface of the islet we carried Connie, and from three 
sides of this sea-fortress she looked abroad over “ th« 


366 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


Atlantic’s level powers.” It blew a gentle ethereal 
breeze on the top ; but had there been such a wind as 
I have since stood against on that fearful citadel of 
nature, I should have been in terror lest we should all be 
blown into the deep. Over the edge she peeped at 
the strange fantastic needle-rock, and round the corner 
she peeped to see Wynnie and her mother seated in 
what they call Arthur’s chair — a canopied hollow wrought 
in the plated rock by the mightiest of all solvents — air 
and water; till at length it was time that we should take 
our leave of the few sheep that fed over the place, and 
issuing by the gothic door, wind away down the danger- 
ous path to the safe ground below. 

“ I think we had better tie up your eyes again, Con- 
nie ? ” I said. 

“Why?” she asked in wonderment “There’s 
nothing higher yet, is there ? ” 

“ No, my love. If there were, you would hardly be 
able for it to-day, I should think. It is only to keep you 
from being frightened at the precipice as you go down.” 
“ But I shan’t be frightened, papa.” 
u How do you know that ?” 

“ Because you are going to carry me.” 

“ But what if I should slip ? I might, you know/’ 

“ I don’t mind. I shan’t mind being tumbled over the 
precipice, if you do it. I shan’t be to blame, and I ’m 
sure you won’t, papa.” Then she drew my head down 
and whispered in my ear, “ If I get as much more by 
being killed, as I have got by having my poor back hurt, 

I ’nti sure it will be well worth it” 


THE OLD CASTLE. 


367 


I tried to smile a reply, for I could not speak one. 
We took her just as she was, and with some tremor on 
my part, but not a single slip, we bore her down the 
winding path, her face showing all the time that, instead 
of being afraid, she was in a state of ecstatic delight. 
My wife, I could see, was nervous, however ; and she 
breathed a sigh of relief when we were once more at the 
foot. 

“ Well, I ’in glad that’s over,” she said. 

u So am I,” I returned as we set down the litter. 

“ Poor papa ! I ’ve pulled his arms to pieces I and Mr 
Percivale’s too ! * 

Percivale answered first by taking up a huge piece of 
stone. Then turning towards her, he said — “ Look here, 
Miss Connie and flung it far out from the isthmus on 
which we were resting. We heard it strike on a rock 
below, and then fall in a shower of fragments. “ My 
arms are all right, you see,” he said. 

Meantime, Wynnie had scrambled down to the shore, 
where we had not yet been. In a few minutes, we still 
lingering, she came running back to us out of breath 
with the news — 

“ Papa ! Mr Percivale ! there ’s such a grand cave 
down there ! It goes right through under the island.” 

Connie looked so eager, that Percivale and I glanced 
at each other, and without a word, lifted her, and fol- 
lowed Wynnie. It was a little way that we had to carry 
her down, but it was very broken, and insomuch more 
difficult than the other. At length we stood in the 
What a contrast to the vision overhead 1— 


cavern 


368 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


nothing to be seen but the cool, dark vault of the cave, 
long and winding, with the fresh seaweed lying on its 
pebbly floor, and its walls wet with the last tide, for 
every tide rolled through in rising and falling — the waters 
on the opposite sides of the islet greeting through this 
cave ; the blue shimmer of the rising sea, and the forms 
of huge outlying rocks, looking in at the further end, 
where the roof rose like a grand cathedral arch; and 
the green gleam of veins rich with copper, dashing and 
streaking the darkness in gloomy little chapels, where 
the floor of heaped-up pebbles rose and ros^e within till it 
met the descending roof. It was like a going-down from 
Paradise into the grave — but a cool, friendly, brown- 
lighted grave, which even in its darkest recesses bore some 
witness to the wind of God outside, in the occasional 
ripple of shadowed light, from the play of the sun on the 
waves, that, fleeted and reflected, wandered across its 
jagged roof. But we dared not keep Connie long in the 
damp coolness; and I have given my reader quite enough 
of description for one hour’s reading. He can scarcely 
be equal to more. 

My invalids had now beheld the sea in such a different 
aspect, that I no longer feared to go back to Kilkhaven. 
Thither we went three days after, and at my invitation^ 
Percivale took Turner’s place in the carriage. 


CHATTER XXVIII. 

JOE AND HIS TROUBLE. 

bright the yellow shores of Kilkhaven 
:ed after the dark sands of Tintagel! 
how low and tame its highest cliffs after 
mighty rampart of rocks which there face 
the sea like a cordon of fierce guardians ! It was pleas- 
ant to settle down again in what had begun to look 
like home, and was indeed made such by the boisterous 
welcome of Dora and the boys. Connie’s baby crowed 
aloud, and stretched forth her chubby arms at sight of 
her. The wind blew gently around us, full both of the 
freshness of the clean waters and the scents of the down- 
grasses, to welcome us back. And the dread vision of 
the shore had now receded so far into the past, that it 
was no longer able to hurt. 

We had called at the blacksmith’s house on our way 
home, and found that he was so far better as to be work- 
ing at his forge again. His mother said he was used 

a a 



370 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


to such attacks, and soon got over them. I, however, 
feared that they indicated an approaching break-down. 

“ Indeed, sir,” she said, “Joe might be well enough if 
he liked. It ’s all his own fault.” 

“What do you mean?” I asked. “I cannot believe 
that your son is in any way guilty of his own illness.” 

“He's a well-behaved lad, my Joe,” she answered; 
“but he hasn’t learned what I had to learn long ago.” 

“What is that?” I asked. 

u To make up his mind, and stick to it To do one 
thing or the other.” 

She was a woman with a long upper lip and a judicial 
face, and as she spoke, her lip grew longer and longer; 
and when she closed her mouth in mark of her own 
resolution, that lip seemed to occupy two-thirds of all 
her face under the nose. 

“ And what is it he won’t do ?” 

“ I don’t mind whether he does it or not, if he would 
only make — up — his — mind — and — stick — to- it.” 

“ What is it you want him to do, then ?” 

“ I don’t want him to do it, I’m sure. It ’s no good to 
me — and wouldn’t be much to him, that I ’ll be bound 
Howsomever, he must please himself.” 

I thought it not very wonderful that he looked 
gloomy, if there was no more sunshine for him at home 
than his mother’s face indicated. Few things can make 
a man so strong and able for his work as a sun indoors, 
whose rays are smiles, ever ready to shine upon him when 
he opens the door, — the face of wife or mother or sister. 
Now his mother’s face certainly was not sunny. No 


JOE AND HIS TROUBLE. 


371 


doubt it must have shone upon him when he was a baby. 
God has made that provision for babies, who need sun- 
shine so much that a mother’s face cannot help being 
sunny to them : why should the sunshine depart as the 
child grows older] 

“Well, I suppose I must not ask. But I fear your 
son is very far from well. Such attacks do not often 
occur without serious mischief somewhere. And if there 
is anything troubling him, he is less likely to get over 
it” 

“ If he would let somebody make up his mind for him, 
and then stick to it,” 

“ Oh ! but that is impossible, you know. A man must 
must make up his own mind.” 

“That’s just what he won’t do.” 

All the time she looked naughty, only after a self- 
righteous fashion. It was evident that whatever was the 
cause of it, she was not in sympathy with her son, and 
therefore could not help him out of any difficulty he 
might be in. I made no further attempt to learn from 
her the cause of her son’s discomfort, clearly a deeper 
cause than his illness. In passing his workshop, we 
stopped for a moment, and I made an arrangement to 
meet him at the church the next day. 

I was there before him, and found that he had done 
a good deal since we left. Little remained except to 
get the keys put to rights, and the rods attached to the 
cranks in the box. To-day he was to bring a carpenter, 
a cousin of his own, with him. 

They soon arrived, and a small consultation followed 


372 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


The cousin was a bright-eyed, cheruby-cheeked little man, 
with a ready smile and white teeth : I thought he might 
help me to understand what was amiss in Joseph’s affairs. 
But I would not make the attempt except openly. I 
therefore said, half in a jocular fashion, as with gloomy, 
self-withdrawn countenance the smith was fitting one 
loop into another in two of his iron rods, — 

“ I wish we could get this cousin of yours to look a 
little more cheerful. You would think he had quarrelled 
with the sunshine.” 

The carpenter showed his white teeth between his 
rosy lips. 

“Well, sir, if you’ll excuse me, you see my cousin 
Joe is not like the rest of us. He’s a religious man, is 
Joe.” 

“ But I don’t see how that should make him miser- 
able. It hasn’t made me miserable. I hope I ’m a 
jeligious man myself. It makes me happy every day of 
my life.” 

“ Ah, well,” returned the carpenter, in a thoughtful 
tone, as he worked away gently to get the inside out of 
the oak-chest without hurting it, “ I don’t say it ’s the 
religion, fori don’t know; but perhaps it’s the way he 
takes it up. He don’t look after hisself enough ; he ’s 
always thinking about other people, you see, sir; and 
it seems to me, sir, that if you don’t look after yourself, 
why, who is to look after you ? That ’s common sense, 
l think.” 

It was a curious contrast — the merry friendly face, 
which shone good-fellowship to all mankind, accusing 


JOE AND HIS TROUBLE. 


371 


the sombre, pale, sad, severe, even somewhat bitter 
countenance beside him, of thinking too much about 
other people, and too little about himself. Of course 
it might be correct in a way. There is all the difference 
between a comfortable, healthy inclination, and a pained 
conscientious principle. It was a smile very unlike his 
cousin’s with which Joe heard his remarks on him- 
self. 

“ But,” I said, “ you will allow, at least, that if every- 
body would take Joe’s way of it, there would then be n# 
occasion for taking care of yourself.” 

“ I don’t see why, sir.” 

“ Why, because everybody would take care of every- 
body else.” 

“ Not so well, I doubt, sir.” 

“ Yes, and a great deal better.* 

“ At any rate, that ’s a long way off ; and meantime, 
who ’ s to take care of the odd man like Joe there, that 
don’t look after hisself?” 

“ Why, God, of course n 

“ Well, there 's just where I ’m out. I don’t know 
nothing about that branch, sir.” 

I saw a grateful light mount up in Joe’s gloomy ey es, 
as I spoke thus upon his side of the question. He said 
nothing, however; and his cousin vdlunteering no 
further information, I did not push any advantage I 
might have gained. 

At noon I made them leave their work, and come 
home with me to have their dinner: they hoped to 
finish the job before dusk Hirrv Cobb and I droDDed 


374 


TI/.E SEABOARD PARISH. 


behind, and Joe Harper walked on in front, apparently 
sunk in meditation. 

Scarcely were we out of the churchyard, and on the 
road leadiwg to the rectory, when I saw the sexton’s 
daughter meeting us. She had almost come up to Joe 
before he saw her, for his gaze was bent on the ground, 
and he started. They shook hands in what seemed to 
me an odd, constrained, yet familiar fashion, and then 
stood as if they wanted to talk, but without speaking. 
Harry and I passed, both with a nod of recognition to 
the young woman, but neither of us had the ill manners 
to look behind. I glanced at Hairy, and he answered 
me with a queer look. When we reached the turning 
that would hide them from our view, I looked back 
almost involuntarily, and there they were still standing. 
But before we reached the door of the rectory, Joe got 
up with us. 

There was something remarkable in the appearance 
of Agnes Coombes, the sexton’s daughter. She was 
about six and twenty, I should imagine, the youngest 
of the family, with a sallow, rather sickly complexion, 
somewhat sorrowful eyes, a smile rare and sweet, a fine 
figure, tall and slender, and a graceful gait. I now saw, 
I thought, a good hair’s-breadth further into the smith’s 
affairs. Beyond the hair’s-breadth, however, all was 
dark. But I saw likewise that the well of truth, whence 
1 might draw the whole business, must be the girl’s 
mother. 

Alter the men had had their dinner and rested a 
while, they went back to the church, and I went to the 


JOE AND HIS TROUBLE. 


375 


sexton’s cottage. I found the old man seated at the 
window, with his pot of beer on the sill, and an empty 
plate beside it. 

“ Come in, sir,” he said, rising, as I put my head in at 
the door. “ The mis’ess ben’t in, but she ’ll be here in a 
few minutes.” 

" Oh, it ’s of no consequence,” I said. “ Are they all 
well?” 

“ All comfortable, sir. It be fine dry weather for them, 
this, sir. It be in winter it be worst for them.” 

“ But it *s a snug enough shelter you ’ve got here. It 
seems such, anyhow ; though, to be sure, it is the blasts 
of winter that find out the weak places both in house 
and body.” 

“ It ben’t the wind touch them? he said ; “ they be safe 
enough from the wind. It be the wet, sir. There ben’t 
much snow in these parts ; but when it du come, that be 
very bad for them, poor things ! ” 

Could it be that he was harping on the old theme again 1 

“ But at least this cottage keeps out the wet,” I said, 
“ If not, we must have it seen to.” 

“ This cottage du well enough, sir. It ’ll last my time, 
anyhow.” 

“ Then why are you pitying your family for having to 
live in it ? ” 

“ Bless your heart, sir ! It *s not them. They du well 
enough. It’s my people out yonder. You’ve got the 
souls to look after, and I ’ve got the bodies. That ? a 
what it be, sir. To be sure ! ” 

The last exclamation was uttered in a tone of impatient 


376 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


surprise at my stupidity in giving all my thoughts and 
sympathies to the living, and none to the dead. I pur- 
sued the subject no further, but as I lay in bed that 
night, it began to dawn upon me as a lovable kind of 
hallucination in which the man indulged. He too had 
an office in the church of God, and he would magnify 
that office. He could not bear that there should be no 
further outcome of his labour; that the burying of the 
dead out of sight should be “ the be-all and the end-alL* 
He was God’s vicar, the gardener in God’s Acre, as the 
Germans call the churchyard. When all others had for- 
saken the dead, he remained their friend, caring for what 
little comfort yet remained possible to them. Hence in 
all changes of air and sky above, he attributed to them 
some knowledge of the same, and some share in their 
consequences even down in the darkness of the tomb. 
It was his way of keeping up the relation between the 
living and the dead. Finding I made him no reply, he 
took up the word again. 

“You’ve got your part, sir, and I’ve got mine. You 
ip into the pulpit, and I down into the grave. But it’ll 
)e all the same by and by.” 

“ I hope it will,” I answered. “ But when you do go 
down into your own grave, you ’ll know a good deal less 
about it than you do now. You ’ll find you ’ve got other 
things to think about. But here comes your wife. She’ll 
talk about the living rather than the dead.” 

“That’s natural, sir. She brought ’em to life, and I 
buried ’em — at least the best part of ’em. If only I had 
the other two safe down with the rest!” 


JOE AND HIS TROUBLE; 


377 


I remembered what the old woman had told me — 
that she had two boys in the sea ; and I knew therefore 
what he meant. He regarded his drowned boys as still 
tossed about in the weary wet cold ocean, and would 
have gladly laid them to rest in the warm dry church* 
yard. 

He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye with the 
back of his hand, and saying, “ Well, I must be off to 
my gardening,” left me with his wife. I saw then that, 
humourist as the old man might be, his humour, like 
that of all true humourists, lay close about the wells of 
weeping. 

“ The old man seems a little out of sorts,” I said to 
his wife. 

‘‘Well, sir,” she answered, with her usual gentleness, 
a gentleness which obedient suffering had perfected, 
“this be the day he buried our Nancy, this day two 
years ; and to-day Agnes be come home from her work 
poorly ; and the two things together they ’ve upset him 
a bit.” 

“ I met Agnes coming this way. Where is she * ” 

“ I believe she be in the churchyard, sir. I ’ve been 
10 the doctor about her.” 

“ I hope it’s nothing serious.” 

u I hope not, sir ; but you see — four on ’em, sir !” 

“Well, she’s in God’s hands, you know.” 

“That she be, sir.” 

•«I want to ask you about something, Mrs Coombes.” 

" What be that, sir ] If I can tell, I will, you may be 


*ure, sir 


378 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ I want to know what ’s the matter with Joe Harper, 
the blacksmith.” 

“ They du say it be a consumption, sir.* 

“ But what has he got on his mind ? ” 

“ He ’s got nothing on his mind, sir. He be as good 
a by as ever stepped, I assure you, sir.” 

“ But I am sure there is something or other on his 
mind. He ’s not so happy as he should be. He ’s not 
the man, it seems to me, to be unhappy because he ’s 
ill. A man like him would not be miserable because he 
was going to die. It might make him look sad some- 
times, but not gloomy as he looks.” 

“ Well, sir, I believe you be right, and perhaps I know 
summat. But it’s part guessing. — I believe my Agnes 
and Joe Harper are as fond upon one another as any 
two in the county.” 

“ Are they not going to be married then ? ” 

“There be the pint, sir. I don’t believe Joe ever 
said a word o’ the sort to Aggy. She never could ha’ 
kep it from me, sir.” 

“ Why doesn’t he then ? * 

“That’s the pint again, sir. All as knows him says 
it’s because he be in such bad health, and he thinks he 
oughtn’t to go marrying with one foot in the grave. 
He never said so to me ; but I think very likely that 
be it.” 

“ For that matter, Mrs Coombes, we’ve all got one 
foot in the grave, I think.” 

“ That be very true, sir.” 

“And what does your daughter think t" 


JOE AND HIS TROUBLE. 


379 


“ I believe she thinks the same. And so they go on 
talking to each other, quiet-like, like old married folks, 
not like lovers at all, sir. But I can’t help fancying it 
have something to do with my Aggy’s pale face.” 

“And something to do with Joe’s pale face too, Mrs 
Coombes,” I said. “Thank you. You’ve told me 
more than I expected. It explains everything. I must 
have it out with Joe now.” 

“ Oh deary me ! sir, don’t go and tell him I said any- 
thing, as if I wanted him to marry my daughter.” 

“ Don’t you be afraid. I ’ll take good care of that. 
And don’t fancy I’m fond of meddling with other 
people’s affairs. But this is a case in which I ought to, 
do something. Joe ’s a fine fellow.” 

“ That he be, sir. I couldn’t wish a better for a sot** 
in-law.” 

I put on my hat. 

“ You won’t get me into no trouble witl Joe, will ye 
sirl” 

“ Indeed I will not, Mrs Coombes. I should be 
doing a great deal more harm than good if I said a 
word to make him doubt you.” 

I went straight to the church. There were the two 
men working away in the shadowy tower, and there was 
Agnes standing beside, knitting like her mother, so 
quiet, so solemn even, that it did indeed look as if she 
were a long-married wife, hovering about her husband 
at his work. Harry was saying something to her as I 
went in, but when they saw me they were silent, and 
Agnes gently withdrew. 


3 8o 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ Do you think you will get through to-night 1 " I 
asked. 

“ Sure of it, sir,” answered Harry. 

u You shouldn’t be sure of anything, Harry. We arc 
told in the New Testament that we ought to say If tht 
Lord will? said Joe. 

“Now, Joe, you’re too hard upon Harry,” I said. 
“ You don’t think that the Bible means to pull a man 
up every step like that, till he ’s afraid to speak a word 1 
It was about a long journey and a year’s residence that 
the Apostle James was speaking.” 

** No doubt, sir. But the principle ’s the same. 
Harry can no more be sure of finishing his work before 
it be dark, than those people could be of going their 
long journey.” 

“ That is perfectly true. But you are taking the letter 
for the spirit, and that, I suspect, in more ways than 
one. The religion does not lie in not being sure about 
anything, but in a loving desire that the will of God in 
the matter, whatever it be, may be done. And if Harry 
has not learned yet to care about the will of God, what 
is the good of coming down upon him that way, as if 
that would teach him in the least. When he loves God, 
then, and not till then, will he care about his will. Nor 
does the religion lie in saying, if the Lord will \ every 
time anything is to be done. It is a most dangerous 
thing to use sacred words often. It makes them so 
common to our ear that at length, when used most 
solemnly, they have not half the effect they ought to have, 
and that is a serious loss. What the Apostle means 14 


JOB AND HIS TROUBLE. 


3*1 


that we should always be in the mood of looking up to 
God and having regard to his will, not always writing 
D.V. for instance, as so many do — most irreverently, I 
think — using a Latin contraction for the beautiful words, 
just as if they were a charm, or as if God would take 
offence if they did not make the salvo of acknowledg- 
ment. It seems to me quite heathenish. Our hearts 
ought ever to be in the spirit of those words ; our lips 
ought to utter them rarely. Besides, there are some 
things a man might be pretty sure the Lord wills.” 

u It sounds fine, sir ; but I ’m not sure that I under- 
stand what you mean to say. It sounds to me like a 
darkening of wisdom.” 

I saw I had irritated him, and so had in some measure 
lost ground. But Harry struck in — 

“ How can you say that now, Joe ? /know what the 
parson means well enough, and everybody knows I ’ain’t 
got half the brains you ’ve got.” 

“ The reason is, Harry, that he got something in his 
head that stands in the way.” 

“And there ’s nothing in my head to stand in the way!” 
returned Harry, laughing. 

This made me laugh too, and even Joe could not 
help a sympathetic grin. By this time it was getting 
dark. 

“ I ’m afraid, Harry, after all, you won’t get through 
to-night” 

“ I begin to think so too, sir. And there ’s Joe saying, 
* I told you so>* over and over to himself, though he won’t 
say it out like a man.” 


382 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


Joe answered only with another grin. 

“I tell you what it is, Harry,” I said — “you must 
come again on Monday. And on your way home 
just look in and tell Joe’s mother that I have kept 
him over to-morrow. The change will do him 
good.” 

“No, sir, that can’t be. I haven’t got a clean 
shirt.” 

“ You can have a shirt of mine,” I said. “ But I ’m 
afraid you ’ll want your Sunday clothes.” 

“I’ll bring them for you, Joe — before you’re up,” in- 
terposed Harry. “ And then you can go to church with 
Aggy Coombes, you know.” 

Here was just what I wanted. 

“Hold your tongue, Harry,” said Joe angrily. 
“You’re talking of what you don’t know anything 
about.” 

“Well, Joe, I ben’t a fool, if I ben’t so religious as 
you be. You ben’t a bad fellow, though you be a Me- 
thodist, and I ben’t a fool, though I be Harry Cobb.” 

“ What do you mean, Harry ? Do hold your tongue.” 

“ Well, I ’ll tell you what I mean first, and then I ’ll 
hold my tongue. I mean this — that nobody with two 
eyes, or one eye ; for that matter, in his head, could help 
seeing the eyes you and Aggy make at each other, and 
why you don’t port your helm and board her — I won’t 
say it *s more than I know, but I du say it be more than 
I think be fair to the young woman.” 

“ Hold your tongue, Harry.” 

* I said I would when I ’d answered you as to what 1 


JOE AND HIS TROUBLE. 


383 


meaned. So no more at present ; but I *11 be over with 
your clothes afore you ’re up in the morning.” 

As Harry spoke he was busy gathering his tools. 

They won’t be in the way, will they, sir 1 ” he said, 
as he heaped them together in the furthest comer of the 
tower. 

“ Not in the least,” I returned. “ If I had my way, all 
the tools used in building the church should be carved 
on the posts and pillars of it, to indicate the sacredness 
of labour, and the worship of God that lies, not in build- 
ing the church merely, but in every honest trade honestly 
pursued for the good of mankind and the need of the 
workman. For a necessity of God is laid upon every 
workman as well as on St Paul. Only St Paul saw it, 
and every workman doesn’t, Harry.” 

“ Thank you, sir. I like that way of it I almost 
think I could be a little bit religious after your way of it, 
sir.” 

‘Almost, Harry!” growled Joe, not unkindly. 

“ Now you hold your tongue, Joe,” I said. “ Leave 
Harry to me. You may take him, if you like, after I ’ve 
done with him.” 

Laughing merrily, but making no other reply than a 
hearty good-night. Harry strode away out of the church, 
and Joe and I went home together. 

When he had had his tea, I asked him to go out with 
we for a walk. 

The sun was shining aslant upon the downs from over 
the sea. We rose out of the shadowy hollow to the 
ttinlit brow. I was a littie in advance of Joe. Happen- 


3*4 


THE SEABOARD PARISH, 


ing to turn, I saw the light full on his head and face, 
while the rest of his body had not yet emerged from the 
shadow. 

tl Stop, Joe,” I said. u I want to see you so for a 
moment,” 

He stood — a little surprised. 

“ You look just like a man rising from the dead, Joe,” 
I said. 

“ I don’t know what you mean, sir,” he returned. 

“ I will describe yourself to you. Your head and face 
are full of sunlight, the rest of your body is still buried 
in the shadow. Look ; I will stand where you are now ; 
and you come here. You will soon see what I mean.” 

We changed places. Joe stared for a moment. Then 
his face brightened. 

“ I see what you mean, sir,” he said. “ I fancy you 
don’t mean the resurrection of the body, but the resur- 
rection of righteousness.” 

“I do, Joe. Did it ever strike you that the whole 
history of the Christian life is a series of such resurrec- 
tions 1 Every time a man bethinks himself that he is 
not walking in the light, that he has been forgetting him- 
self, and must repent, that he has been asleep and must 
awake, that he has been letting his garments trail, and 
must gird up the loins of his mind — every time this takes 
place, there is a resurrection in the world. Yes, Joe ; 
and every time that a man finds that his heart is troubled, 
that he is not rejoicing in God, a resurrection must 
follow — a resurrection out of the night of troubled 
thoughts into the gladness of the truth. For the truth 


JOE AND HIS TROUBLE. 


3«J 


is, and ever was, and ever must be, gladness, however 
much the souls on which it shines may be obscured by 
the clouds of sorrow, troubled by the thunders of fear, 
or shot through with the lightnings of pain. Now, Joe, 
will you let me tell you what you are like — I do not 
know your thoughts; I am only judging from your 
words and looks?” 

“You may if you like, sir,” answered Joe, a little 
sulkily. But I was not to be repelled. 

I stood up in the sunlight, so that my eyes caught 
only about half the sun’s disc. Then I bent my face 
towards the earth. 

“ What part of me is the light shining on now, Joe P 

“ Just the top of your head,” answered he. 

“There, then,” I returned, “ that is just what you are 
like — a man with the light on his head, but not on his 
face. And why not on your face ? Because you hold 
your head down.” 

“ Isn’t it possible, sir, that a man might lose the light 
on his face, as you put it, by doing his duty?” 

“That is a difficult question,” I replied. “I must 
think before I answer it” 

“ I mean,” added Joe — “ mightn’t his duty be a pain- 
ful one?” 

“ Yes. But I think that would rather etherealize than 
destroy the light. Behind the sorrow would spring a 
yet greater light from the very duty itself. I have ex- 
pressed myself badly, but you will see what I mean.— 
To be frank with you, Joe, I do not see that light in 
your face. Therefore I think something must be wrong 


3*6 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


with you. Remember a good man is not necessarily in 
fhe right. St Peter was a good man, yet our Lord called 
him Satan — and meant it of course, for he never said 
what he did not mean.” 

“ Plow can I be wrong when all my trouble comes 
from doing my duty — nothing else, as far as I know? ” 

“ Then,” I replied, a sudden light breaking in on my 
mind, “ I doubt whether what you suppose to be your 
duty can be your duty. If it were, I do not think it 
would make you so miserable. At least — I may be 
wrong, but I venture to think so.” 

“ What is a man to go by, then t If he thinks a thing 
is his duty, is he not to do it ? ” 

“ Most assuredly — until he knows better. But it is of 
the greatest consequence whether the supposed duty be 
the will of God or the invention of one’s own fancy or 
mistaken judgment. A real duty is always something 
right in itself. The duty a man makes his for the time, by 
supposing it to be a duty, may be something quite wrong 
in itself. The duty of a Hindoo widow is to burn her- 
self on the body of her husband. But that duty lasts 
no longer than till she sees that, not being the will of 
God, it is not her duty. A real duty, on the other hand, 
is a necessity of the human nature, without seeing and 
doing which a man can never attain to the truth and 
blessedness of his own being. It was the duty of the 
early hermits to encourage the growth of vermin upon 
their bodies, for they supposed that was pleasing to God; 
but they could not fare so well as if they had seen the 
truth that the will of God was cleanliness. And there 


JOE AND HIS TROUBLE. 


387 


may be far more seiious things done by Christian people 
against the will of God, in the fancy of doing their duty, 
than such a trifle as swarming with worms. In a word, 
thinking a thing is your duty makes it your duty only till 
you know better. And the prime duty of every man is to 
seek and find, that he may do, the will of God/ 

“ But do you think, sir, that a man is likely to be 
doing what he ought not, if he is doing what he don’t 
likeP 

li Not so likely, I allow. But there maybe ambitior 
in ft. A man must not want to be better than the right 
That is the delusion of the anchorite — a delusion in which 
the man forgets the rights of others for the sake of his 
own sanctity.” 

“ It might be for the sake of another person, and not 
for the person’s own sake at all.” 

“ It might be ; but except it were the will of God for 
that other person, it would be doing him or her a real 
injury.” 

We were coming gradually towards what I wanted to 
make the point in question. I wished him to tell me all 
about it himself, however, for I knew that while advice 
given on request is generally disregarded, to offer advice 
unasked is worthy only of a fool. 

“ But how are you to know the will of God in every 
easel” asked Joe. 

“ By looking at the general laws of life, and obeying 
them — except there be anything special in a parti culal 
case to bring it under a higher law.” 

“Ah l but that be just what there is here.* 


388 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ Well, my dear fellow, that may be ; but the special 
conduct may not be right for the special case for all that 
The speciality of the case may not be even sufficient to 
take it from under the ordinary rule. But it is of no 
use talking generals. Let us come to particulars. If 
you can trust me, tell me all about it, and we may be 
able to let some light in. I am sure there is darkness 
somewhere.’* 

“I will turn it over in my mind, sir; and if I cap 
bring myself to talk about it, I wilL I would rather tel 
you than any one else*."' 

I said no more. We watched a glorious sunset— 
there never was* a grander piace lor sunsets — and went 
hoc Si 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


A SMALL ADVENTURE. 



HE next morning Harry came with the clothes. 
But Joe did not go to church. Neither did 
Agnes make her appearance that morning. 
They were both present at the evening ser- 
vice, however. 

When we came out of church, it was cloudy and dark, 
and the wind was blowing cold from the sea. The sky 
was covered with one cloud, but the waves tossing them- 
selves against the rocks, flashed whiteness out of the 
general gloom. As the tide rose the wind inci eased. 
It was a night of surly temper — hard and gloomy. Not 
a star cracked the blue above — there was no blue ; and 
the wind was gurly : I once heard that word in Scotland/- 
and never forgot it. 

After one of our usual gatherings in Connie’s room, 
which were much shorter here because of the evening 
vice in summer, I withdrew till supper should be ready. 


39 ° 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


Now I have always had, as I think I have incidentally 
stated before, a certain peculiar pleasure in the surly 
aspects of nature. When I was a young man this took 
form in opposition and defiance ; since I had begun to 
grow old the form had changed into a sense of safety. 
I welcomed such aspects, partly at least, because they 
roused my faith to look through and beyond the small 
region of human conditions in which alone the storm 
can be and blow, and thus induced a feeling like that ol 
the child who lies in his warm crib and listens to the 
howling of one of these same storms outside the strong- 
built house which yet trembles at its fiercer onsets : the 
house is not in danger j or, if it be, that is his father’s 
business, not his. Hence it came that, after supper, I 
put on my great-coat and travelling cap, and went out 
into the ill-tempered night — SDeaking of it in its human 
symbolism. 

I meant to have a stroll down to the breakwater, of 
which I have yet said little, but which was a favourite 
resort both of myself and my children. At the further 
end of it, always covered at high water, was an outlying 
cluster of low rocks, in the heart of which the lord of the 
manor, a noble-hearted Christian gentleman of the old 
school, had constructed a bath of graduated depth — an 
open-air swimming pool — the only really safe place for 
men who were swimmers to bathe in. Thither I was in 
the habit of taking my two little men every morn- 
ing, and bathing with them, that I might develop 
the fish that was in them ; for, as George Herbert 
says— 


A SMALL ADVENTURE. 


39 * 


Man is everything, 

And more : he is a tree, yet bears no fruit ; 

A beast, yet is, or should be, more 

and he might have gone on to say that he is, or should 
be, a fish as well. 

It will seem strange to any reader who can recall the 
position of my Connie's room, that the nearest way to 
the breakwater should be through that room ; but so it 
was. I mention the fact because I want my readers to 
understand a certain peculiarity of the room. By the 
side of the window which looked out upon the break- 
water was a narrow door, apparently of a closet or cup- 
board, which communicated, however, with a narrow, 
curving, wood-built passage, leading into a little wooden 
hut, the walls of which were by no means impervious to 
the wind, for they were formed of outside-planks, with 
the bark still upon them. From this hut one or two little 
windows looked seaward, and a door led out on the bit 
of sward in which lay the flower-bed under Connie's 
window. From this spot again a door in the low 
wall and thick hedge led out on the downs, where apath 
wound along the cliffs that formed the side of the bay, 
till, descending under the storm-tower, it brought you to 
the root of the breakwater. 

This mole stretched its long strong low back to a rock 
a good way out, breaking the force of the waves, and 
rendering the channel of a small river, that here flowed 
into the sea across the sands from the mouth of the canal, 
a refuge from the Atlantic. But it was a roadway often 
hard to reach. In fair weather even, the wind falling as 


39 * 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


the vessel rounded the point of the breakwater into the 
calm of the projecting headlands, the under-current would 
sometimes dash her helpless on the rocks. During all 
this heavenly summer there had been no thought or fear 
of any such disaster. The present night was a hint of 
what weather would yet come. 

When I went into Connie’s room, I found her lying in 
bed a very picture of peace. But my entrance destroyed 
the picture. 

“ Papa,” she said, “why have you got your coat ont 
Surely you are not going out to-night The wind is 
blowing dreadfully.” 

“ Not very dreadfully, Connie. It blew much worse 
the night we found your baby.” 

u But it is very dark.” 

“ I allow that ; but there is a glimmer from the sea. 
I am only going on the breakwater for a few minutes. 
You know I like a stormy night quite as much as a fine 
one.” 

“ I shall be miserable till you come home, papa.” 

“ Nonsense, Connie. You don’t think your father 
hasn’t sense to take care of himself 1 Or rather, Connie, 
for I grant that is poor ground of comfort, you don’t 
think I can go anywhere without my Father to take care 
of me?” 

“ But there is no occasion — is there, papa I” 

“ Do you think I should be better pleased with my 
boys if they shrunk from everything involving the least 
possibility of danger because there was no occasion for 
it? That is just the way to make cowards. And I am 


A SMALL ADVENTURE. 


393 


certain God would not like his children to indulge in 
such moods of self-preservation as that He might well 
be ashamed of them. The fearful are far more likely 
to meet with accidents than the courageous. But really, 
Connie, I am almost ashamed of talking so. It is all 
your fault. There is positively no ground for appre- 
hension, and I hope you won’t spoil my walk by the 
thought that my foolish little girl is frightened.” 

“ I will be good — indeed I will, papa,” she said, hold- 
ing up her mouth to kiss me. 

I left her room, and went through the wooden passage 
into the bark hut. The wind roared about it, shook it, 
and pawed it, and sung and whistled in the chinks of 
the planks. I went out and shut the door. That 
moment the wind seized upon me, and I had to fight 
with it. When I got on the path leading along the edge 
of the downs, I felt something lighter than any feather 
dy in my face. When I put up my hand, I found my 
cheek wet Again and again I was thus assailed, but 
when I got to the breakwater, I found what it was. 1 
They were flakes of foam, bubbles worked up into little 
masses of adhering thousands, which the wind blew off 
the waters and across the downs, carrying some of them 
miles inland. When I reached the breakwater, and 
looked along its ridge through the darkness of the night 
I was bewildered to see a whiteness lying here and there 
in a great patch upon its top. They were but accumu- 
lations of these foam-flakes, like soap-suds, lying so thick 
that I expected to have to wade through them, only they 
vanished at the touch of my feet Till then 1 had 


394 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


almost believed it was snow I saw. On the edge of the 
waves, in quieter spots, they lay like yeast, foaming and 
working. Now and then a little rush of water from a 
higher wave swept over the top of the broad breakwater, 
as with head bowed sideways against the wind, I struggled 
along towards the rock at its end ; but I said to myself, 
u The tide is falling fast, and salt water hurts nobody,” 
and struggled on over the huge rough stones of the 
mighty heap, outside which the waves were white with 
wrath, inside which they had fallen asleep, only heaving 
with the memory of their late unrest. I reached the 
tall rock at length, climbed the rude stair leading up to 
the flagstaff, and looked abroad, if looking it could be 
called, into the thick dark. But the wind blew so strong 
on the top that I was glad to descend. Between me 
and the basin where yesterday morning I had bathed in 
still water and sunshine with my boys, rolled the deathly 
waves. I wandered on the rough narrow space yet un- 
covered, stumbling over the stones and the rocky points 
between which they lay, stood here and there half- 
meditating, and at length, finding a sheltered nook in a 
mass of rock, sat with the wind howling and the waves 
bursting around me. There I fell into a sort of brown 
study — almost a half-sleep. 

But I had not sat long before I came broad awake, 
for I heard voices, low and earnest. One I recognized 
as Joe’s voice. The other was a woman’s. I could not 
tell what they said for some time, and therefore felt no 
immediate necessity for disclosing my proximity, but sat 
debating with myself whether I should speak to them or 


A SMALL ADVENTURE. 


395 


not At length, in a lull of the wind, I heard the woman 
say- -I could fancy with a sigh — 

“ I ’m sure you ’ll du what is right, Joe. Don’t ’e think 
o' me, Joe.” 

“ It’s just of you that I do think, Aggy. You know it 
ben’t for my sake. Surely you know that 1 ” 

There was no answer for a moment. I was still doubt- 
ing what I had best do — go away quietly or let them 
know I was there — when she spoke again. There was a 
momentary lull now in the noises of both wind and water, 
and I heard what she said well enough. 

“ It ben’t for me to contradict you, Joe. But I don’t 
think you be going to die. You be no worse than last 
year. Be you now, Joe ? ” 

It flashed across me how once before, a stormy night 
and darkness had brought me close to a soul in agony. 
Then I was in agony myself ; now the world was all fair 
and hopeful around me — the portals of the world beyond 
ever opening wider as I approached them, and letting 
out more of their glory to gladden the path to their 
threshold. But here were two souls straying in a mist 
which faith might roll away, and leave them walking in 
the light. The moment was come. I must speak. 

* Joe ! ” I called out. 

“ Who 's there ? ” he cried ; and I heard him start to 
his feet 

“ Only Mr Walton. Where are you!” 

“ We can’t be very far off,” he answered, hot in a tone 
of any pleasure at finding me so nigh. 

I rose, and peering about through the darkness, found 


39 $ 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


that they were a little higher up on the same rock by 
which I was sheltered. 

“ You musn’t think,” I said, “ that I have been eaves- 
dropping. I had no idea any one was near me till I 
heard your voices, and I did not hear a word till just the 
last sentence or two.” 

“I saw some one go up the Castle-rock,” said Joe; 
“ but I thought he was gone away again. It will be a 
lesson to me.” 

“I’m no tell-tale, Joe,” I returned, as I scrambled up 
the rock. “ You will have no cause to regret that I 
happened to overhear a little. I am sure, Joe, you will 
never say anything you need be ashamed of. But what 
I heard was sufficient to let me into the secret of your 
trouble. Will you let me talk to Joe, Agnesi I’ve 
been young myself, and to tell the truth, I don’t think 
I ’m old yet.” 

“ I am sure, sir,” she answered, “ you won’t be hard 
on Joe and me. I don’t suppose there be anything 
wrong in liking each other, though we can’t be — mar 
ried.” 

She spoke in a low tone, and her voice trembled very 
much ; yet there was a certain womanly composure in 
her utterance. “ I ’m sure it ’s very bold of me to talk 
so,” she added, “but Joe will tell you all about it.” 

I was close beside them now, and fancied I saw 
through the dusk the motion of her hand stealing into 
his. 

“ Well, Joe, this is just what I wanted,” I said. “ A 
woman can be braver than a big smith sometimes. 


A SMALL ADVENTURE. 


397 


Agnes has done her part. Now you do yours, and tell 
me all about it.” 

No response followed my adjuration. I must help 
him. 

“ I think I know how the matter lies, Joe. You think 
you are not going to live long, and that therefore you 
ought not to marry. Am I right ? ” 

“ Not far off it, sir,” he answered. 

“ Now, Joe,” I said, “can’t we talk as friends about this 
matter? I have no right to intrude into your affairs— 
none in the least — except what friendship gives me. If 
you say I am not to talk about it, I shall be silent. To 
force advice upon you would be as impertinent as use- 
less.” 

“ It *s all the same, I ’m afraid, sir. My mind has been 
made up for a long time. What right have I to bring 
other people into trouble ? But I take it kind of you, 
sir, though I mayn’t look over-pleased. Agnes wants to 
hear your way of it. I ’m agreeable.” 

This was not very encouraging. Still I thought it 
sufficient ground for proceeding. 

“ I suppose that you will allow that the root of all 
Christian behaviour is the will of God ? ” 

“Surely, sir.” 

“ Is it not the will of God, then, that when a man and 
Woman love each other, they should marry?” 

“Certainly, sir — where there be no reasons against 

it.” 

“ Of course. And you judge you see reason for not 
doing so, else you would V 


39 » 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ I do see that a man should not bring a woman into 
trouble for the sake of being comfortable himself for the 
rest of a few weary days.” 

Agnes was sobbing gently behind her handkerchief! 
I knew how gladly she would be Joe’s wife, if only to 
nurse him through his last 'llness. 

“Not except it would make her comfortable too, I 
grant you, Joe. But listen to me. In the first place, 
you don’t know, and you are not required to know, when 
you are going to die. In fact, you have nothing to do 
with it. Many a life has been injured by the constant 
expectation of death. It is life we have to do with, not 
death. The best preparation for the night is to work 
while the day lasts, diligently. The best preparation for 
death is life. Besides, I have known delicate people 
who have outlived all their strong relations, and been 
left alone in the earth — because they had possibly taken 
too much care of themselves. But marriage is God’s 
will, and death is God’s will, and you have no business 
to set the one over against, as antagonistic to, the other. 
For anything you know, the gladness and the peace ot 
marriage may be the very means intended for your re- 
storation to health and strength. I suspect your desire 
to marry, fighting against the idea that you ought not 
to marry, has a good deal to do with the state of health 
in which you now find yourself. A man would get over 
many things if he were happy, that he cannot get over 
when he is miserable.” 

“ But it’s for Aggy. You forget that.” 

* I do not forget it. What right have you to seek for 


A SMALL ADVENTURE. 


399 


her another kind of welfare than you would have your- 
self? Are you to treat her as if she were worldly when 
you are not — to provide for her a comfort which your- 
self you would despise? Why should you not marry 
because you have to die soon ? — if you are thus doomed, 
which to me is by no means clear. Why not have what 
happiness you may for the rest of your sojourn ? If you 
find at the end of twenty years that here you are after 
all, you will be rather sorry you did not do as I say.” 

“And if I find myself dying at the end of six 
months?” 

" You will thank God for those six months. The whole 
thing, my dear fellow, is a want of faith in God. I do 
not doubt you think you are doing right, but, I repeat, 
the whole thing comes from want of faith in God. You 
will take things into your own hands, and order them 
after a preventive and self-protective fashion, lest God 
should have ordained the worst for you, which worst, 
after all, would be best met by doing his will without in- 
quiry into the future; and which worst is no evil. Death 
is no more an evil than marriage is.” 

“ But you don’t see it as I do,” persisted the black- 
smith. 

“ Of course I don’t I think you see it as it is not.” 

He remained silent for a little. A shower of spray fell 
upon us. He started. 

“ What a wave I ” he cried. “ That spray came over 
the top of the rock. We shall have to run for it” 

I fancied that he only wanted to avoid further conver- 
sation. 


4*> 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ There’s no hurry,” I said. “It was high water an 
hour and a half ago.” 

“ You don’t know this coast, sir,” returned he, “ or you 
wouldn’t talk like that.” 

As he spoke he rose, and going from under the shelter 
of the rock, looked along. 

“ For God’s sake, Aggy !” he cried, in terror, “come 
at once. Every other wave be rushing across the break* 
water as if it was on the level.” 

So saying, he hurried back, caught her by the hand, 
and began to draw her along. 

“ Hadn’t we better stay where we are ? ” I sug- 
gested. 

“ If you can stand the night in the cold. But Aggy 
here is delicate ; and I don’t care about being out all 
night. It ’s not the tide, sir ; it ’s a ground swell — from 
a storm somewhere out at sea. That never asks no ques- 
tions about tide or no tide.” 

“ Come along, then,” I said. “ But just wait one 
minute more. It is better to be ready for the worst.” 

For I remembered that the day before I had seen a 
crow-bar lying among the stones, and I thought it might 
be useful. In a moment or two I had found it, and return- 
ing, gave it to Joe. Then I took the girl’s disengaged 
hand She thanked me in a voice perfectly calm and 
firm. Joe took the bar in haste, and drew Agnes to- 
wards the breakwater. 

Any real thought of danger had not yet crossed my 
mind. But when I looked along the outstretched back 
of the mole, and saw a dim sheet of white sweep across 


A SMALL ADVENTURE. 


401 


it, I felt that there was ground for his anxiety, and pre- 
pared myself for a struggle 

“ Do you know whai to do with the crowbar, Joe?** 
I said, grasping my own stout oak stick more firmly. 

“ Perfectly,” answered Joe. “To stick between the 
stones and hold on. We must watch our time between 
the waves.” 

“ You take the command, then, Joe,” I returned. 
“ You see better than I do, and you know the ways of 
that raging wild beast there better than I do. I will obey 
orders — one of which, no doubt, will be, not for wind or 
sea to lose hold of Agnes — eh, Joe ?” 

Joe gave a grim enough laugh in reply, and we started, 
he carrying his crowbar in his right hand towards the ad- 
vancing sea, and I my oak stick in my left towards the 
still water within. 

“ Quick march !” said Joe, and away we went out on 
the breakwater. 

Now the back of the breakwater was very rugged, for 
it was formed of huge stones, with wide gaps between, 
where the waters had washed out the cement, and worn 
their edges. But what impeded our progress secured our 
safety. 

“ Halt !” cried Joe, when we were yet but a few yard* 
beyond the shelter of the rocks. €i There’s a topper 
coming.” 

We halted at the word of command, as a huge wave, 
with combing crest, rushed against the far outsloping 
base of the mole, and flung its heavy top right over the 
middle of the mass, a score or two of yards in front of us. 

a Q 


«oa 


THl SEABOARD PARISH. 


u Now for it," cried Joe. “ Run 1 n 

We did run. In my mind there was just sense enough 
of danger to add to the pleasure of the excitement. 1 
did not know how much danger there was. Over the 
rough worn stones we sped, stumbling. 

“ Halt ! ” cried the smith once more, and we did halt ; 
but this time, as it turned out, in the middle front of the 
coming danger. 

M God be with us ! " I exclaimed, when the huge billow 
showed itself through the night, rushing towards the mole. 
The smith stuck his crowbar between two great stones. 
To this he held on with one hand, and threw the other 
arm round Agnes’s waist I, too, had got my oak firmly 
fixed, held on with one hand, and threw the other arm 
round Agnes. It took but a moment 

“ Now then 1” cried Joe. u Here she comes ! Hold 
on, sir. Hold on, Aggy !” 

But when I saw the height of the water, as it rushed 
on us up the sloping side of the mound, I cried out, in 
my turn — 

“ Down, Joe 1 Down on your face, and let it over us 
easy! Down, ^gnes!" 

They obeyed. We threw ourselves across the break- 
water, with our heads to the coming foe, and I grasped 
my stick close to the stones with all the power of a 
hand that was then strong. Over us burst the mighty 
jrave, floating us up from the stones where we lay. But 
we held on, the wave passed, and we sprung gasping to 
our feet 

* Now, now I" cried Joe and I together, and, heavy 


A SMALL ADVENTURE. 


403 


as we were, with the water pouring from us, we flew 
across the remainder of the heap, and arrived, panting 
and safe, at the other end, ere one wave more had swept 
the surface. The moment we were in safety we turned 
and looked back over the danger we had traversed. It 
was to see a huge billow sweep the breakwater from end 
to end. We looked at each other for a moment without 
speaking. 

“I believe, sir,” said Joe at length, with slow and 
solemn speech, “if you hadn’t taken the command at 
that moment we should all have been lost.” 

“ It seems likely enough, when I look back on it. 
For one thing, I was not sure that my stick would stand, 
so I thought I had better grasp it low down.” 

“ We were awfully near death,” said Joe. 

u Nearer than you thought, Joe; and yet we escaped 
it. Things don’t go all as we fancy, you see. Faith is 
as essential to manhood as foresight — believe me, Joe. 
It is very absurd to trust God for the future, and not 
trust him for the present. The man who is not anxious 
is the man most likely to do the right thing. He is cool 
and collected and ready. Our Lord therefore told his 
disciples that when they should be brought before kings 
and rulers, they were to take no thought what answei 
they should make, for it would be given them when the 
time came.” 

We were climbing the steep path up to the downs. 
Neither of my companions spoke. 

“You have escaped one death together,” I said, at 
length : “ dare another.” 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


404 


Still neither of them returned an answer. When we 
came near the parsonage, I said — 

“ Now, Joe, you must go in and get to bed at once. 
I will take Agnes home. You can trust me not to say 
anything against you ?” 

Joe laughed rather hoarsely, and replied — 
u As you please, sir. Good night, Aggy. Mind yoo 
get to bed as fast as you can.” 

When I returned from giving Agnes over to her 
parents, I made haste to change my clothes, and put on 
my warm dressing-gown. I may as well mention at 
once, that not one of "us was the worse for our ducking. 
I then went up to Connie’s room. 

“ Here I am you see, Connie, quite safe.” 

M I ’ve been lying listening to every blast of wind since 
you went out, papa. But all I could do was to trust in 
God.” 

“ Do you call that «//, Connie 1 Believe me, there is 
more power in that than any human being knows the 
tenth part of yet. It is indeed all” 

I said no more then. I told my wife about it that 
flight, but we were well into another month before I told 
Connie. 

When I left her, I went to Joe’s room to see how he 
was, and found him having some grueL I sat down on 
the edge of his bed, and said — 

“ Well, Joe, this is better than under water. I hope 
you won’t be the worse for it.” 

“ I don’t much care what comes of me, sir. It will be 
all over soon.” 


A SMALL ADVENTURE. 


40S 


“But you ought to care what comes of you, Joe. I 
will tell you why. You are an instrument out of which 
ought to come praise to God, and, therefore, you ought 
to care for the instrument.” 

“ That way, yes, sir, I ought.” 

“And you have no business to be like some children, 
who say, ‘ Mamma won’t give me so and so/ instead of 
asking her to give it them.” 

“ I see what you mean, sir. But really you put me 
out before the young woman. I couldn’t say before her 
what I meant. Suppose, you know, sir, there was to 
come a family. It might be, you know.” 

“ Of course. What else would you have ? ” 

“ But if I was to die, where would she be then 9 * 

“ In God’s hands ; just as she is now.” 

“ But I ought to take care that she is not left with a 
burden like that to provide for.” 

“ Oh, Joe ! how little you know a woman’s heart ! It 
would just be the greatest comfort she could have for 
losing you — that ’s all. Many a woman has married a 
man she did not care enough for, just that she might 
have a child of her own to let out her heart upon. I 
don’t say that is right, you know. Such love cannot be 
perfect. A woman ought to love her child because it is 
her husband’s more than because it is her own, and 
because it is God’s more than either's. I saw in the 
papers the other day, that a woman was brought before 
the Recorder of London for stealing a baby, when the 
judge himself said that there was no imaginable motive 
for her action but a motnerly passion to possess the 


40 6 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


child. It is the need of a child that makes so many 
women take to poor miserable, broken-nosed lap-dogs 5 
for they are self-indulgent, and cannot face the troubles 
and dangers of adopting a child. They would if they 
might get one of a good family, or from a respectable 
home ; but they dare not take an orphan out of the dirt, 
lest it should spoil their silken chairs. But that has 
nothing to do with our argument. What I mean is this, 
that if Agnes really loves you, as no one can look in her 
face and doubt, she will be far happier if you leave her 
a child — yes, she will be happier if you only leave her 
your name for hers — than if you died without calling her 
your wife.” 

I took Joe’s basin from him, and he lay down. He 
turned his face to the wall. I waited a moment, but 
finding him silent, bade him good night, and left the 
room. 

A month after. I married them. 


CHAPTER XXX. 


THE HARVEST. 



IT was some lime before we got the bells to 
work to our mind, but at last we succeeded. 
The worst of it was to get the cranks, which 
at first required strong pressure on the keys, 


to work easily enough. But neither Joe nor his cousin 
spared any pains to perfect the attempt, and, as I say, 
at length we succeeded. I took Wynnie down to the 
instrument and made her try whether she could not do 
something, and she succeeded in making the old tower 
discourse loudly and eloquently. 

By this time the thanksgiving for the harvest was at 
hand : on the morning of that first of all would I sum- 
mon the folk to their prayers with the sound of the full 
peal. And I wrote a little hymn of praise to the God 
of the harvest, modelling it to one of the oldest tunes in 
that part of the country, and I had it printed on slips of 
paper a^d laid plentifully on the benches. What with 


408 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


the calling of the bells, like voices in the highway, and 
the solemn meditation of the organ within to bear aloft 
the thoughts of those who heard, and came to the prayer 
and thanksgiving in common, and the message which 
God had given me to utter to them, I hoped that we 
should indeed keep holiday. 

Wynnie summoned the parish with the hundredth psalm 
pealed from aloft, dropping from the airy regions of the 
tower on village and hamlet and cottage, calling aloud 
^for who could dissociate the words from the music, 
though the words are in the Scotch psalms'! — written non« 
the less by an Englishman, however English wits mar 
amuse themselves with laughing at their quaintness— 
calling aloud, — 

44 All people that on earth do dwell 

Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice ; 

Him serve with mirth, his praise forth tell— 

Come ye before him and rejoice.” 

Then we sang the psalm before the communion ser- 
vice, making bold in the name of the Lord to serve him 
with mirth as in the old version, and not with the feat 
with which some editor, weak in faith, has presumed to 
alter the line. Then before the sermon we sang the 
hymn 1 had prepared — a proceeding justifiable by many 
an example in the history of the church while she was 
not only able to number singers amongst her clergy, but 
those singers were capable of influencing the whole 
heart and judgment of the nation with their songs. 
Ethelwyn played the organ. 

The song I had prepared was this 


THE HARVEST, 




We praise the Life of All ; 

From buried seeds so small 
Who makes the ordered ranks of autumn stand • 

Who stores the corn 
In rick and barn 
To feed the winter of the land. 

We praise the Life of Light! 

Who from the brooding night 
Draws out the morning holy, calm, and grand | 

Veils up the moon. 

Sends out the sun, 

To glad the face of all the land. 

We praise the Life of Woric, 

Who from sleep’s lonely dark 
Leads forth his children to arise and stau^, 

Then go their way. 

The live-long day, 

To trust and labour in the land. 

We praise the Life of Good, 

Who breaks sin’s lazy mood. 

Toilsomely ploughing up the fruitless sand. 

The furrowed waste 
They leave, and haste 
Home, home to till their Father’s land. 

We praise the Life of Life, 

Who in this soil of strife 
Casts us at birth, like seed from sower’s hand; 

To die, and so 
Like corn to grow 
A golden harvest in his land. 

After we bad sung this hymn, the meaning of which ia 
far better than the versification, I preached from the 
words of St Paul, “ If by any means I might attain unto 
the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had al- 


4io 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


ready attained, either were already perfect.” And this 
is something like what I said to them : — 

“The world, my friends, is full of resurrections, and 
it is not always of the same resurrection that St Paul 
speaks. Every night that folds us up in darkness is a 
death ; and those of you that have been out early and 
have seen the first of the dawn, will know it — the day 
rises out of the night like a being that has burst its tomb 
and escaped into life. That you may feel that the sun- 
rise is a resurrection — the word resurrection just means 
a rising again — I will read you a little description of it 
from a sermon by a great writer and great preacher 
called Jeremy Taylor. Listen. ‘But as when the sun 
approaching towards the gates of the morning, he first 
opens a little eye 0 * heaven and sends away the spirits 
of darkness, and gives light to a cock, and calls up the 
lark to matins, and by and by gilds the fringes of a cloud, 
and peeps over the eastern hills, thrusting out his golden 
horns like those which decked the brows of Moses, when 
he was forced to wear a veil, because himself had seen 
the face of God ; and still, while a man tells the story, 
the sun gets up higher, till he shows a fair face and a 
full light, and then he shines one whole day, under a 
cloud often, and sometimes weeping great and little 
showers, and sets quickly ; so is a man’s reason and his 
life/ Is not this a resurrection of the day out of the 
night 1 Or hear how Milton makes his Adam and Eve 
praise God in the morning, — 

‘Ye mists and exhalations that now rise 
From hill or streaming lake, dusky or grujt, 


THE HARVEST. 


4H 


Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold. 

In honour to the world’s great Author rise, 

Whether to deck with clouds the uncoloured sky. 

Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers, 

Rising or falling still advance his praise.* 

But it is yet more of a resurrection to you. Think oi 
your own condition through the night and in the morn- 
ing. You die, as it were, every night. The death of 
darkness comes down over the earth ; but a deeper 
death, the death of sleep, descends on you. A power 
overshadows you ; your eyelids close, you cannot keep 
them open if you would; your limbs lie moveless; the 
day is gone ; your whole life is gone ; you have forgotten 
everything ; an evil man might come and do with yom 
goods as he pleased; you are helpless. But the God <»1 
the Resurrection is awake all the time, watching his 
sleeping men and women, even as a mother who watches 
her sleeping baby, only with larger eyes and more full 
of love than hers ; and so, you know not how, all at 
once you know that you are what you are ; that there is 
a world that wants you outside of you, and a God that 
wants you inside of you ; you rise from the death of 
sleep, not by your own power, for you knew nothing 
about it ; God put his hand jver your eyes, and you 
were dead; he lifted his hand and breathed light on 
you, and you rose from the dead, thanked the God who 
raised you up, and went forth to do your work. From 
darkness to light ; from blindness to seeing ; from know- 
ing nothing to looking abroad on the mighty world : 
5:om helpless submission to willing obedience, — is not 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


*1* 


this a resurrection indeed ? That St Paul saw it to be 
such may be shown from his using the two tilings with 
the same meaning when he says, ‘Awake thou that 
sleepest and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give 
thee light.’ No doubt he meant a great deal more. No 
man who understands what he is speaking about can 
well mean only one thing at a time. 

“ But to return to the resurrections we see around us 
in nature. Look at the death that falls upon the world 
in winter. And look how it revives when the sun draws 
n*ar enough in the spring to wile the life in it once more 
out of its grave. See how the pale, meek snowdrops 
come up with their bowed heads, as if full of the memory 
of the fierce winds they encountered last spring, and yet 
ready in the strength of their weakness to encounter them 
again. Up comes the crocus, bringing its gold safe from 
the dark of its colourless grave into the light of its parent 
gold. Primroses, and anemones, and blue-bells, and a 
thousand other children of the spring, hear the resurrec- 
tion-trumpet of the wind from the west and south, obey, 
and leave their graves behind to breathe the air of the 
sweet heavens. Up and up they come till the year is glori- 
ous with the rose and the lily, till the trees are not only 
clothed upon with new garments of loveliest green, but 
the fruit-tree bringeth forth its fruit, and the little chil- 
dren of men are made glad with apples, and cherries, and 
hazel- nuts. The earth laughs out in green and gold, 
The sky shares in the grand resurrection. The garments 
of its mourning, wherewith it mace men sad, its clouds 
*oi snow and hail and stormy vapours are swept away, 


the harvest. 


413 


have sunk indeed to the earth, and are now humbly 
feeding the roots of the flowers whose dead stalks they 
beat upon all the winter long. Instead, the sky. has put 
on the garments of praise. Her blue, coloured after the 
sapphire-floor on which stands the throne of him who is 
the Resurrection and the Life, is dashed and glorified 
with the pure white of sailing clouds, and at morning 
and evening prayer, puts on colours in which the human 
heart drowns itself with delight — green and gold and 
purple and rose. Even the icebergs floating about in 
the lonely summer seas of the north are flashing all the 
glories of the rainbow. But, indeed, is not this, whole 
world itself a monument of the Resurrection ” The 
earth was without form and void. The wind A God 
moved on the face of the waters, and up arose this fair 
world. Darkness was on the face of the deep : God 
said, * Let there be light,’ and there was light. 

(i In the animal world as well, you behold th'; goings 
of the Resurrection. Plainest of all, look at the story of 
the butterfly — so plain that the pagan Greeks called it 
and the soul by one name — Psyche. Psyche mu.nt with 
them a butterfly or the soul, either. Look how the 
creeping thing, ugly to our eyes, so that we can hardly 
handle it without a shudder, finding itself growing sick 
with age, straightway falls a spinning and weaving at its 
Own shroud, coffin, and grave, all in one — to piepaie, ia 
fact, for its resurrection ; for it is for the sake of the re- 
surrection that death exists. Patiently it spins its 
strength, but not its life, away, folds itself up decently, 
that its body may rest in quiet till the new body is 


4*4 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


formed within it; and at length when the appointed hour 
has arrived, out of the body of this crawling thing breaks 
forth the winged splendour of the butterfly — not the 
same body — a new built out of the ruins of the old- 
even as St Paul tells us that it is not the same body we 
have in the resurrection, but a nobler body like ourselves, 
with all the imperfect and evil thing taken away. No 
more creeping for the butterfly; wings of splendour now. 
Neither yet has it lost the feet wherewith to alight on all 
that is lovely and sweet. Think of it — up from the 
toilsome journey over the low ground, exposed to the 
foot of every passer-by, destroying the lovely leaves upon 
which it fed, and the fruit which they should shelter, 
up to the path at will through the air, and a gathering 
of food which hurts not the source of it, a food which is 
but as a tribute from the loveliness of the flowers to the 
yet higher loveliness of the flower-angel : is not this a 
resurrection? Its children too shall pass through the 
same process, to wing the air of a summer noon, and 
rejoice in the ethereal and the pure. 

“ To return yet again from the human thoughts sug- 
gested by the symbol of the butterfly” — 

Here let me pause for a moment — and there was a 
corresponding pause, though but momentary, in the 
sermon as I spoke it — to mention a curious, and to me 
at the moment an interesting fact. At this point of my 
address, I caught sight of a white butterfly, a belated one, 
flitting about the church. Absorbed for a moment, my 
eye wandered after it It was near the bench where my 
•wn people sat, and, for one flash of thought, I longed 


THE HARVEST. 


4*5 


that the butterfly would alight on my Wynnie, for I was 
more anxious about her resurrection at the time than 
about anything else. But the butterfly would not. And 
then I told myself that God would, and that the butterfly 
was only the symbol of a grand truth, and of no private 
interpretation, to make which of it was both selfishness 
and superstition. But all this passed in a flash, and I re- 
sumed my discourse. 

— “ I come now naturally to speak of what we com- 
monly call the Resurrection. Some say : * How can the 
same dust be raised again, when it may be scattered to 
the winds of heaven V It is a question I hardly care to 
answer. The mere difficulty can in reason stand for 
nothing with God ; but the apparent worthlessness of the 
supposition renders the question uninteresting to me. 
What is of import is, that I should stand clothed upon, 
with a body which is my body because it serves my ends, 
justifies my consciousness of identity by being, in all that 
was good in it, like that which I had before, while now 
it is tenfold capable of expressing the thoughts and feel- 
ings that move within me. How can I care whether the 
atoms that form a certain inch of bone should be the 
same as those which formed that bone when I died 1 All 
my life-time I never felt or thought of the existence of 
such a bone ! On the other hand, I object to having 
the same worn muscles, the same shrivelled skin with 
which I may happen to die. Why give me the same 
body as that ? Why not rather my youthful body, which 
w ? as strong, and facile, and capable 1 The matter in the 
muscle of my arm at death would not serve to make halt 


416 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


the muscle I had when young. But I thank God that St 
Paul says it will not be the same body. That body dies 
^up springs another body. I suspect myself that those 
are right who say that this body being the seed, the 
moment it dies in the soil of this world, that moment is 
the resurrection of the new body. The life in it rises 
out of it in a new body. This is not after it is put in 
the mere earth ; for it is dead then, and the germ of life 
gone out of it. If a seed rots, no new body comes of it 
The seed dies into a new life, and so does man. Dying 
and rotting are two very different things. — But I am not 
sure by any means. As I say, the whole question is 
rather uninteresting to me. What do I care about my 
old clothes after I have done with them 1 What is it to 
me to know what becomes of an old coat or an old 
pulpit gown ? I have no such clinging to the flesh. It 
seems to me that people believe their bodies to be 
themselves, and are therefore very anxious about 
them — and no wonder then. Enough for me that I 
shall have eyes to see my friends, a face that they 
shall know me by, and a mouth to praise God withaL 
I leave the matter with one remark, that I am 
well content to rise as Tesus rose, however that 
was. For me the will of God is so good that I 
would rather have his will done than my own choice 
given me. 

u But I now come to the last, because infinitely the 
most important part of my subject — the resurrection fc* 
the sake of which all the other resurrections exist — the 
resurrection unto Life. This is the one of which St Taul 




THE HARVEST. 


417 


speaks in my text. This is the one I am most anxious 
— indeed, the only one I am anxious to set forth, and 
impress upon you. 

“ Think, then, of all the deaths you know ; the death 
of the night, when the sun is gone, when friend says not 
a word to friend, but both lie drowned and parted in the 
sea of sleep ; the death of the year, when winter lies 
heavy on the graves of the children of summer, when the 
leafless trees moan in the blasts from the ocean, when 
the beasts even look dull and oppressed, when the chil- 
dren go about shivering with cold, when the poor and 
improvident are miserable with suffering ; or think of 
such a death of disease as befalls us at times, when the 
man who says, ‘ Would God it were morning ! * changes 
but his word, and not his tune, when the morning comes, 
crying, ‘ Would God it were evening ! ’ when what life is 
left is known to us only by suffering, and hope is 
amongst the things which were once and are no more — 
think of all these, think of them all together, and you 
will have but the dimmest, faintest picture of the death 
from which the resurrection of which I have now to speak, 
is the rising. I shrink from the attempt, knowing how 
weak words are to set forth the death, set forth the resur- 
rection. Were I to sit down to yonder organ, and crash 
out the most horrible dissonances that ever took shape 
in sound, I should give you but a weak figure of this 
death ; were I capable of drawing from many a row of 
pipes an exhalation of dulcet symphonies and voices 
sweet, such as Milton himself could have invaded our 

cars withal, I could give you but a faint figure of this 

a d 


418 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


resurrection. Nevertheless, I must try what I can do in 
my own way. 

“ If into the face of the dead body, lying on the bed, 
waiting for its burial, the soul of the man should begin to 
dawn again, drawing near from afar to look out once 
more at those eyes, to smile once again through those 
lips, the change on that face would be indeed great and 
wondrous, but nothing for marvel or greatness to that 
which passes on the countenance, the very outward 
bodily face of the man who wakes from his sleep, arises 
from the dead and receives light from Christ. Too often 
indeed, the reposeful look on the face of the dead body 
would be troubled, would vanish away at the revisiting 
of the restless ghost ; but when a man’s own right true 
mind, which God made in him, is restored to him again, 
and he wakes from the death of sin, then comes the re- 
pose without the death. It may take long for the new 
spirit to complete the visible change, but it begins at 
once, and will be perfected. The bloated look of self- 
indulgence passes away like the leprosy of Naaman, the 
cheek grows pure, the lips return to the smile of hope 
instead of the grin of greed, and the eyes that made in- 
nocence shrink and shudder with their yellow leer grow 
childlike and sweet and faithful. The mammon-eyes, 
hitherto fixed on the earth, are lifted to meet their kind ; 
the lips that mumbled over figures and sums of gold 
learn to say words of grace and tenderness. The trucu- 
lent, repellent, self-satisfied face begins to look thought- 
ful and doubtful, as if searching for some treasure of 
whose whereabouts it had no certain sign. The face, 


THE HARVEST. 


419 


anxious, wrinkled, peering, troubled, on whose lines you 
read the dread of hunger, poverty, and nakedness, thaws 
into a smile ; the eyes reflect in courage the light of the 
Father’s care ; the back grows erect under its burden 
with the assurance that the hairs of its head are all 
numbered. But the face can with all its changes set but 
dimly forth the rising from the dead which passes within. 
The heart, which cared but for itself, becomes aware of 
surrounding thousands like itself, in the love and care 
of which it feels a dawning blessedness undreamt of be- 
fore. From selfishness to love — is not this a rising from 
the dead ? The man whose ambition declares that his 
way in the world would be to subject everything to his 
desires, to bring every human care, affection, power, and 
aspiration to his feet — such a world it would be, and 
such a king it would have, if individual ambition might 
work its will ! if a man’s opinion of himself could be 
made out in the world, degrading, compelling, oppress- 
ing, doing everything for his own glory ! — and such a 
glory ! — but a pang of light strikes this man to the heart ; 
an arrow of truth, feathered with suffering and loss and 
dismay, finds out — the open joint in his armour, I was 
going to say — no, finds out the joint in the coffin where 
his heart lies festering in a death so dead that itself calls 
it life. He trembles, he awakes, he rises from the dead. 
No more he seeks the slavery of all : where can he find 
whom to serve 1 how can he become if but a threshold 
in the temple of Christ, where all serve all, and no man 
thinks first of himself? He to whom the mass of his 
fellows, as he massed them, was common and unclean, 


420 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


bows before every human sign of the presence of the 
making God. The sun, which was to him but a candle 
with which to search after his own ends, wealth, power, 
place, praise — the world, which was but the cavern where 
he thus searched — are now full of the mystery of loveli- 
ness, full of the truth of which sun and wind and land 
and sea are symbols and signs. From a withered old 
age of unbelief, the dim eyes of which refuse the glory 
of things a passage to the heart, he is raised up a child 
full of admiration, wonder, and gladness. Everything 
is glorious to him ; he can believe, and therefore he sees. 
It is from the grave into the sunshine, from the night 
into the morning, from death into life. To come out of 
the ugly into the beautiful ; out of the mean and selfish 
into the noble and loving; out of the paltry into the 
great ; out of the false into the true ; out of the filthy 
into the clean; out of the commonplace into the glorious; 
out of the corruption of disease into the fine vigour and 
gracious movements of health ; in a word, out of evil 
into good — is not this a resurrection indeed — the resur- 
rection of all, the resurrection of Life 1 God grant that 
with St Paul we may attain to this resurrection of the 
dead. 

“ This rising from the dead is often a long and a pain- 
ful process. Even after he had preached the gospel to 
the Gentiles, and suffered much for the. sake of his 
Master, Paul sees the resurrection of the dead towering 
grandly before him, not yet climbed, not yet attained 
unto — a mountainous splendour and marvel still shining 
aloft in the air of existence, still, thank God, to be at 


THE HARVEST. 


431 


tained, but ever growing in height and beauty as, forget- 
ting those things that are behind, he presses towards the 
mark, if by any means he may attain to the resurrection 
of the dead. Every blessed moment in which a man 
bethinks himself that he has been forgetting his high 
calling, and sends up to the Father a prayer for aid ; 
every time a man resolves that what he has been doing 
he will do no more ; every time that the love of God, or 
the feeling of the truth, rouses a man to look first up at 
the light, then down at the skirts of his own garments — 
that moment a divine resurrection is wrought in the 
earth. Yea, every time that a man passes from resent- 
ment to forgiveness, from cruelty to compassion, from 
hardness to tenderness, from indifference to carefulness, 
from selfishness to honesty, from honesty to generosity, 
from generosity to love, — a resurrection, the bursting of 
a fresh bud of life out of the grave of evil gladdens the 
eye of the Father watching his children. Awake then, 
thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ 
will give thee light. As the harvest rises from the 
wintry earth, so rise thou up from the trials of this world 
a full ear in the harvest of him who sowed thee in the 
soil that thou mignrest rise above it. As the summer 
rises from the winter, so rise thou from the cares of 
eating and drinking and clothing into the fearless sun- 
shine of confidence in the Father. As the morning rises 
out of the night, so rise thou from the darkness of igno- 
rance to do the will of God in the daylight ; and as a 
man feels that he is himself when he wakes from the 
troubled and grotesque visions of the night into the 


422 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


glory of the sunrise, even so wilt thou feel that then first 
thou knowest what thy life, the gladness of thy being, is. 
As from painful tossing in disease, rise into the health 
of well-being, As from the awful embrace of thy own 
dead body, burst forth in thy spiritual body. Arise thou, 
responsive to the indwelling will of the Father, even as 
thy body will respond to thy indwelling soul. 

* White wings are crossing ; 

Glad waves are tossing ; 

The earth flames out in crimson and green : 

Spring is appearing. 

Summer is nearing— 

Where hast thou been ? 

Down in some cavern. 

Death’s sleepy tavern, 

Housing, carousing with spectres of night t 
The trumpet is pealing 
Sunshine and healing— 

Spring to the light/ ** 

With this quotation from a friend's poem, I closed my 
sermon, oppressed with a sense of failure ; for ever the 
marvel of simple awaking, the mere type of the resurrec- 
tion eluded all my efforts to fix it in words. I had to 
comfort myself with the thought that God is so strong 
that he can work even with our failures. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


A WALK WITH MY WIFE* 



HE autumn was creeping up on the earth, 
^ with winter holding by its skirts behind ; but 
before I lose my hold of the garments of 
summer, I must write a chapter about a 
walk and a talk I had one night with my wife. It had 
rained a good deal during the day, but as the sun went 
down the air began to clear, and when the moon shone 
out, near the full, she walked the heavens, not “ like one 
that hath been led astray,” but as “ queen and huntress, 
chaste and fair.” 

“ What a lovely night it is ! ” said Ethelwyn, who had 
come into my study — where I always sat with unblinded 
windows, that the night and her creatures might look in 
upon me — and had stood gazing out for a moment. 

“ Shall we go for a little turn ? " I said. 

“ I should like it very much,” she answered. ** I will 
go and put on my bonnet at once.” 


424 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


In a minute or two she looked in again, all ready. I 
rose, laid aside my Plato, and went with her. We turned 
our steps along the edge of the down, and descended 
upon the breakwater, where we seated ourselves upon the 
same spot where, in the darkness, I had heard the voices 
of Joe and Agnes. What a different night it was from 
that ! The sea lay as quiet as if it could not move for 
the moonlight that lay upon it. The glory over it was 
so mighty in its peacefulness, that the wild element 
beneath was afraid to tosS itself even with the motions 
of its natural unrest. The moon was like the face of a 
saint before which the stormy people has grown dumb. 
The rocks stood up solid and dark in the universal aether, 
and the pulse of the ocean throbbed against them with 
a lapping gush, soft as the voice of a passionate child 
soothed into shame of its vanished petulance. But 
the sky was the glory. Although no breath moved be- 
low, there was a gentle wind abroad in the upper regions. 
The air was full cf masses of cloud, the vanishing frag- 
ments of the one great vapour which had been pouring 
down in rain the most of the day. These masses were 
all setting with one steady motion eastward into the 
abysses of space ; now obscuring the fy-ir moon, now 
solemnly sweeping away from before her. As they de- 
parted, out shone her marvellous radiance, as calm as 
ever. It w^as plain that she knew nothing of what we 
called her covering, her obscuration, the dimming of h~t 
glory. She had been busy all the time weaving, het 
lovely opaline damask on the other side of th* i* 
which we said she was swallowed up. 


A WALK WITH MY WIFE. 


4^5 


* Have you ever noticed wifie,” I said, u how the eyes 
of our minds — almost our bodily eyes— are opened some- 
times to the cubicalness of nature, as it were ? ” 

“ I don’t know, Harry, for I don’t understand your 
question,” she answered. 

“ Well, it was a stupid way of expressing what I meant. 
No human being could have understood it from that. I 
will make you understand in a moment, though. Some- 
times — perhaps, generally — we see the sky as a flat dome, 
spangled with star-points, and painted blue. Now I see 
It as an awful depth of blue air, depth within depth ; and 
the clouds before me are not passing away to the left, 
but sinking away from the front of me into the marvel- 
lous unknown regions, which, let philosophers say what 
they will about time and space — and I daresay they are 
right — are yet very awful to me. Thank God, my dear,” 
I said, catching hold of her arm, as the tenor of mere 
space grew upon me, “ for Himself. He is deeper than 
space, deeper than time ; he is the heart of all the cube 
of history.” 

u I understand you now, husband,” said my wife. 

“ I knew you would,” I answered. 

“ But,” she said again, “ is it not something the same 
with the things inside us ? I can’t put it in words as 
you do. Do you understand me now 1 ” 

“I am not sure that I do. You must try again.” 

“You understand me well enough, only you like to 
make me blunder where you can talk,” said my wift\ 
putting her hand in mine. “ But I will try. Sometimes* 
after thinking about something for a long time, you come 


4 26 


TIIE SEABOARD PARISH. 


to a conclusion about it, and you think you have settled 
it plain and clear to yourself, for ever and a day. You 
hang it upon your wall, like a picture, and are satisfied 
for a fortnight. But some day, when you happen to 
cast a look at it, you find that instead of hanging flat on 
the wall, your picture has gone through it — opens out 
into some region you don’t know where — shows you far 
receding distances of air and sea — in short, where you 
thought one question was settled for ever, a hundred are 
opened up for the present hour.” 

“ Bravo, wife ! ” I cried in true delight. “ I do indeed 
understand you now. You have said it better than I 
could ever have done. That ’s the plague of you women ! 
You have been taught for centuries and centuries that 
there is little or nothing to be expected of you, and 
so you won’t try. Therefore we men know no more 
than you do whether it is in you or not. And when you 
do try, instead of trying to think, you want to be in 
Parliament all at once.” 

“ Do you apply that remark to me, sir?” demanded 
Ethelwyn. 

“ You must submit to bear the sins of your kind upon 
occasion,” I answered. 

“ I am content to do that, so long as yours will help 
mine,” she replied. 

“Then I may go on?” I said, with interroga- 
tion. 

“ Till sunrise if you like. We were talking of the 
C,ibicalness — I believe you called it — of nature.” 

“And you capped it with the cubicalness of thought 


A WALK WITH MY WIFE. 


07 


And quite right too. There are people, as a dear friend 
of mine used to say, who are so accustomed to regard 
everything in the flat , as dogma cut and — not always 
dried my moral olfactories aver — that if you prove to 
them the very thing they believe, but after another mode 
than that they have been accustomed to, they are 
offended, and count you a heretic. There is no help for 
it. Even St Paul’s chief opposition came from the 
Judaizing Christians of his time, who did not believe 
that God could love the Gentiles, and therefore regarded 
him as a teacher of falsehood. We must not be fierce 
with them. Who knows what wickedness of their ances- 
tors goes to account for their stupidity ? For that there 
are stupid people, and that they are, in very conse- 
quence of their stupidity, conceited, who can deny? 
The worst of it is, that no man who is conceited can be 
convinced of the fact.” 

“ Don’t say that, Harry. That is to deny conversion.* 

"You are right, Ethelwyn. The moment a man is 
convinced of his folly, he ceases to be a fool. The 
moment a man is convinced of his conceit, he ceases to 
be conceited. But there must be a final judgment, and 
the true man will welcome it, even if he is to appear a 
convicted fool. A man’s business is to see first that he 
is not acting the part of a fool, and next, to help any 
honest people who care about the matter to take heed 
likewise that they be not offering to pull the mote out of 
their brother’s eye. But there are even societies es- 
tablished and supported by good people for the express 
purpose of pulling out motes. — ‘ The Mote-Pulling So 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 




ciety!* — That ought to take with a certain part of the 
public.” 

“ Come, come, Harry. You are absurd. Such people 
don’t come near you.” 

“ They can’t touch me. No. But they come near 
good people whom I know, brandishing the long pins 
with which they pull the motes out, and threatening 
them with judgment before their time. They are but 
pins, to be sure — not daggers.” 

“ But you have wandered, Harry, into the narrowest 
underground, musty ways, and have forgotten all about 
* the cubicalness of nature.* ” 

“You are right, my love, as you generally are,” I 
answered, laughing. “ Look at that great antlered elk, 
or moose — fit quarry for Diana of the silver bow. Look 
how it glides solemnly away into the unpastured depths 
of the aerial deserts. Look again at that reclining 
giant, half raised upon his arm, with his face turned to- 
wards the wilderness. What eyes they must be under 
those huge brows ! On what message to the nations is 
he borne, as by the slow sweep of ages, on towards his 
mysterious goal ? ” 

“ Stop, stop, Harry,” said my wife. “ It makes me un- 
happy to hear grand words clothing only cloudy fancies* 
Such words ought to be used about the truth, and the 
truth only.” 

“ If I could carry it no further, my dear, then it would 
indeed be a degrading of words. But there never was 
a vagary that uplifted the soul, or made the grand words 
flow from the gates of speech, that had not its counter- 


A WALK WITH MY WIFE. 


429 


part in truth itself. Man can imagine nothing, even in 
the clouds of the air, that God has not done, or is not 
doing. Even as that cloudy giant yields, and is ‘ shep- 
herded by the slow unwilling wind,’ so is each of us borne 
onward to an unseen destiny — a glorious one if we will 
but yield to the Spirit of God that bloweth where it 
listeth — with a grand listing — coming whence we know 
not, and going whither we know not. The very clouds 
of the air are hung up as dim pictures of the thoughts 
and history of man.” 

“ I do not mind how long you talk like that, husband, 
even if you take the clouds for your text. But it did 
make me miserable to think that what you were saying 
had no more basis than the fantastic forms which the 
clouds assume. I see I was wrong, though.” 

“The clouds themselves, in such a solemn stately 
march as this, used to make me sad for the very same 
reason. I used to think, What is it. all for? They are 
but vapours blown by the wind. They come nowhence, 
and they go nowhither. But now I see them and all 
things as ever moving symbols of the motions of man’s 
spirit and destiny.” 

A pause followed, during which we sat and watched 
the marvellous depth of the heavens, deep as I do not 
think I ever saw them before or since, covered with a 
stately procession of ever-appearing and ever-vanishing 
forms — great sculpturesque blocks of a shattered storm 
--the icebergs of the upper sea. These were not far 
off against a blue background, but floating near us in 
the heart of a blue-black space, gloriously lighted by a 


430 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


golden rather than silvery moon. At length my wife 
spoke. 

44 I hope Mr Percivale is out to-night/' she said, 
44 How he must be enjoying it if he is ! ” 

44 1 wonder the young man is not returning to his pro* 
fessional labours,” I said. 44 Few artists can afford such 
long holidays as he is taking.” 

44 He is laying in stock, though, I suppose,” answered 
my wife. 

44 1 doubt that, my dear. He said not, on one occa- 
sion, you may remember.” 

44 Yes, I remember. But still he must paint better 
the more familiar he gets with the things God cares to 
fashion.” 

44 Doubtless. But I am afraid the work of God he is 
chiefly studying at present is our Wynnie.” 

44 Well, is she not a worthy object of his study?” 
returned Ethelwyn, looking up in my face with an arch 
expression. 

44 Doubtless, again, Ethel ; but I hope she is not 
studying him quite so much in her turn. I have seen 
her eyes following him about.” 

My wife made no answer for a moment Then she 
said, 

44 Don’t you like him, Harry?” 

44 Yes. I like him very much.” 

44 Then why should you not like Wynnie to like 
him ? ” 

44 1 should like to be surer of his principles, for one 

thing.” 


A WALK WITH MY WIFE. 


43 * 


“ I should like to be surer of Wynnie’s.” 

I was silent. Ethelwyn resumed. 

“ Don’t you think they might do each other 
good ? ” 

Still I could not reply. 

“ They both love the truth, I am sure ; only they don’t 
perhaps know what it is yet. I think if they were to fall 
in love with each other, it would very likely make them 
both more desirous of finding it still.” 

“ Perhaps,” I said at last. “ But you are talking about 
awfully serious things, Ethelwyn.” 

“ Yes, as serious as life,” she answered. 

“ You make me very anxious,” I said. “ The young 
man has not, I fear, any means of gaining a livelihood 
for more than himself.” 

“ Why should he, before he wanted it ? I like to see a 
man who can be content with an art and a living by 
it.” 

“ I hope I have not been to blame in allowing them 
to see so much of each other,” I said, hardly heeding my 
wife’s words. 

“ It came about quite naturally,” she rejoined. “ If 
you had opposed their meeting, you would have been 
interfering just as if you had been Providence. And you 
would have only made them think more about each 
Other.” 

“He hasn’t said anything — has hel” I asked in posi- 
tive alarm. 

“ Oh dear no. It may be all my fancy. I am only 
looking a little ahead. I confess I should like him foi 


43 * 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


a son-in-law. I approve of him,” she added, with a sweet 
laugh. 

“ Well,” I said, “ I suppose sons-in-law are possible, 
however disagreeable, results of having daughters. 

I tried to laugh, but hardly succeeded. 

“ Harry,” said my wife, “ I don’t like you in such a 
mood. It is not like you at all. It is unworthy of you.” 

“ How can I help being anxious when you speak of 
such dreadful things as the possibility of having to give 
away my daughter, my precious wonder that came to me 
through you, out of the infinite — the tender little dar- 
ling!” 

“ ‘Out of the heart of God,’ you used to say, Henry. 
Yes, and with a destiny he had ordained. It is strange 
to me how you forget your best and noblest teaching 
sometimes. You are always telling us to trust in God. 
Surely it is a poor creed that will only allow us to trust 
in God for ourselves — a very selfish creed. There must 
be something wrong there. I should say that the man 
who can only trust God for himself is not half a Chris- 
tian. Either he is so selfish that that satisfies him, or he 
has such a poor notion of God that he cannot trust him 
with what most concerns him. The former is not your 
case, Harry: is the latter, then? — You see I must 
take my turn at the preaching sometimes. Mayn’t I, 
dearest ? ” 

She took my hand in both of hers. The truth arose 
in my heart. I never loved my wife more than at that 
moment And now I could not speak for other reasons. 
I saw that I had been faithless to my God, and the mo- 


A WALK WITH MY WIFE. 


433 


ment I could command my speech, I hastened to con- 
fess it. 

“ You are right, my dear,” I said, “ quite right. I 
have been wicked, for I have been denying my God. 
I have been putting my providence in the place of his 
— trying, like an anxious fool, to count the hairs on 
Wynnie’s head, instead of being content that the grand, 
loving Father should count them. My love, let us pray 
for Wynnie ; for what is prayer but giving her to God 
and his holy, blessed will ?” 

We sat hand in hand. Neither spoke aloud for some 
minutes, but we spoke in our hearts to God, talking to 
him about Wynnie. Then we rose together, and walked 
homeward, still in silence. But my heart and hand clung 
to my wife as to the angel whom God had sent to deliver 
me out of the prison of my faithlessness. And as we 
went, lo ! the sky was glorious again. It had faded from 
my sight, had grown flat as a dogma, uninteresting as “ a 
foul and pestilent congregation of vapours ; ” the moon 
had been but a round thing with the sun shining upon 
it, and the stars were only minding their own business. 
But now the solemn march towards an unseen, un- 
imagined goal had again begun. Wynnie’s life was hid 
with Christ in God. Away strode the cloudy pageant 
with its banners blowing in the wind, which blew where 
it grandly listed, marching as to a solemn triumphal 
music that drew them from afar towards the gates of 
pearl by which the morning walks out of the New Jeru- 
salem to gladden the nations of the earth. Solitary stars, 
■with all their sparkles drawn in, shone, quiet as human 

2 E 


4o4 


THB SEABOARD PARISH. 


eyes, hi the deep solemn clefts of dark blue air. They 
looked restrained and still, as if they knew all about it 
— all about the secret of this midnight inarch. For 
the moon — she saw the sun, and therefore made the 
earth glad. 

“ You have been a moon to me, this night, my wife ,* 
I said. “ You were looking full at the truth, while I was 
dark. I saw its light in your face, and believed, and 
turned my soul to the sun. And now I am both ashamed 
and glad. God keep me from sinning so again.” 

“ My dear husband, it was only a mood — a passing 
mood,” said Ethelwyn, seeking to comfort me. 

“ It was a mood, and thank God, it is now past ; but 
it was a wicked one. It was a mood in which the Lord 
might have called me a devil, as he did St Peter. Such 
moods have to be grappled with and fought the moment 
they appear. They must not have their way for a single 
thought even.” 

u But we can’t help it always, can we, husband?” 

“ We can’t help it out and out, because our wills are 
not yet free with the freedom God is giving us as fast as 
we will let him. When we are able to will thoroughly, 
then we shall do what we will. At least, I think we 
shall. But there is a mystery in it God only understands. 
All we know is, that we can struggle and pray. But a 
mood is an awful oppression sometimes when you least 
believe in it and most wish to get rid of it. It is like a 
headache in the soul.” 

“ What do the people do that don’t believe in God I" 
said Ethelwvn. 


A WALK WITH MY WIFE. 


435 


The same moment Wynnie, who had seen us pass the 
window, opened the door of the bark-house for us, and 
we passed into Connie’s chamber and found her lying 
in the moonlight, gazing at the same heavens as hei 
father and mother had been revelling in. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


OUR LAST SHORE-DINNER. 

HE next day was very lovely. I think it is 
the last of the kind of which I shall have 
occasion to write in my narrative of the 
Seaboard Parish. I wonder if my readers 
are tired of so much about the common things of Nature. 
I reason about it something in this way : — We are so 
easily affected by the smallest things that are of the 
unpleasant kind, that we ought to train ourselves to the 
influence of those that are of an opposite nature. The 
unpleasant ones are like the thorns which make them- 
selves felt as we scramble — for we often do scramble in 
a very undignified manner — through the thickets of life ; 
and, feeling the thorns, we grumble, and are blind to all 
but the thorns. The flowers and the lovely leaves and 
the red berries and the clusters of filberts and the birds - 
nests, do not force themselves upon our attention as the 
thorns do, and the thorns make us forget to look for 



OUR LAST SHORE-DINNER. 


437 


them. But a scratch would be forgotten — and that in 
mental hurts is often equivalent to a cure, for a forgotten 
scratch on the mind or heart will never fester — if we 
but allowed our being a moment’s repose upon any of 
the quiet, waiting, unobtrusive beauties that lie around 
the half- trodden way, offering their gentle healing. And 
when I think how, not unfrequently, otherwise noble 
characters are anything but admirable when under the 
influence of trifling irritations, the very paltriness of 
which seems what the mind, which would at once rouse 
itself to a noble endurance of any mighty evil, is unable 
to endure, I would gladly help so with sweet antidotes 
to defeat the fly in the ointment of the apothecary that 
the whole pot shall send forth a pure savour. We ought 
for this to cultivate the friendships of little things. 
Beauty is one of the surest antidotes to vexation. Often 
when life looked dreary about me, from some real or 
fancied injustice or indignity, has a thought of truth 
been flashed into my mind from a flower, a shape of 
frost, or even a lingering shadow, — not to mention such 
glories as angel-winged clouds, rainbows, stars, and sun- 
rises. Therefore I hope that in my loving delay over 
such aspects of Nature as impressed themselves upon 
me in this most memorable part of my history, I shall 
not prove wearisome to my reader, for therein I should 
utterly contravene my hope and intent in the recording 
of them. 

This day there was to be an unusually low tide, and 
we had reckoned of enlarging our acquaintance with the 
bed of the ocean — of knowing a few yards more of the 


43 ? 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


millions of miles lapt in the mystery of waters. It was 
to be low water about two o’clock, and we resolved to 
dine upon the sands. But all the morning the children 
were out playing on the threshold of old Neptune’s 
palace; for in his quieter mood, he will, like a fierce 
mastiff, let children do with him what they will. I gave 
myself a whole holiday — sometimes the most precious 
part of my life both for myself and those for whom I 
labour — and wandered about on the shore, now passing 
the children and assailed with a volley of cries and 
entreaties to look at this one’s castle and that one’s 
ditch, now leaving them behind, with what in its un- 
graduated flatness might well enough personate an end- 
less desert of sand between, over the expanse of which 
I could imagine them disappearing on a far horizon, 
whence, however, a faint occasional cry of excitement 
and pleasure would reach my ears. The sea was so 
calm, and the shore so gently sloping, that you could 
hardly tell where the sand ceased and the sea began — 
the water sloped to such a thin pellicle, thinner than any 
knife edge, upon the shining brown sand, and you saw 
the sand underneath the water to such a distance out 
Yet this depth, which would not drown a red spider, was 
the ocean. In my mind I followed that bed of shining 
sand, bared of its hiding waters, out and out, till I was 
lost in an awful wilderness of chasms, precipices, and 
mountain peaks, in whose caverns the sea-serpent nay 
dwell, with his breath of pestilence; the kraken, with 
u his skaly rind,” may there be sleeping 

M His ancient dieamless, uninvaded sleep," 


OUR LAST SHORE-DINNER. 


439 


while 


“ faintest sunlights flee 
About his shadowy sides,” 


as he lies 

“ Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep.** 


There may lie all the horrors that Schiller’s diver en- 
countered — the frightful Molch, and that worst of all, to 
which he gives no name, which came creeping with a 
hundred knots at once ; but here are only the gracious 
rainbow-woven shells, an evanescent jelly or two, and 
the queer baby-crabs that crawl out from the holes of the 
bordering rocks. What awful gradations of gentleness 
lead from such as these down to those caverns where 
wallow the inventions of Nature’s infancy, when like a 
child of untutored imagination, she drew on the slate of 
her fancy creations in which flitting shadows of beauty 
serve only to heighten the shuddering, gruesome horror ? 
The sweet sun and air, the hand of man, and the growth 
of the ages, have all but swept such from the upper plains 
of the earth : what hunter’s bow has twanged, what ad- 
venturer’s rifle has cracked in those leagues of mountain 
waste, vaster than all the upper world can show, where 
the beasts of the ocean “ graze the sea-weed, their pas- 
ture”! Diana of the silver bow herself, when she de- 
scends into the interlunar caves of hell, sends no such 
monsters fleeing from her spells. Yet if such there be, 
such horrors too must lie in the undiscovered caves of 
mail’s nature, of which all this outer world is but a typi- 
cal analysis. By equally slow gradations may the inner 
eye descend from the truth of a Cordelia to the falsehood 


440 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


of an Iago. As these golden sands slope from the sun* 
light into the wallowing abyss of darkness, even so from 
the love of the child to his holy mother slopes the inclined 
plane of humanity to the hell of the sensualist. “ But 
with one difference in the moral world,” I said aloud, as 
I paced up and down on the shimmering margin — “ that 
everywhere in the scale the eye of the all-seeing Father 
can detect the first quiver of the eyelid that would raise 
itself heavenward, responsive to his waking spirit.” I 
lifted my eyes in the relief of the thought, and saw how 
the sun of the autumn hung above the waters oppressed 
with a mist of his own glory; far away to the left a man 
who had been clambering on a low rock, inaccessible 
save in such a tide, gathering mussels, threw himself 
into the sea and swam ashore ; above his head the storm- 
tower stood in the stormless air ; the sea glittered and 
shone, and the long-winged birds knew not which to 
choose, the balmy air or the cool deep, now flitting like 
arrow-heads through the one, now alighting eagerly upon 
the other, to forsake it anew for the thinner element I 
thanked God for his glory. 

“Oh, papa, it’s so jolly! So jolly 1” shouted the 
children as I passed them again. 

“What is it that ’s so jolly, Charlie? ” I asked. 

u My castle,” screeched Harry in reply ; “ only it ’a 
tumbled down. The water would keep coming in under 
neath.” 

“ I tried to stop it with a newspaper,” cried Charlie^ 
“ but it wouldn’t. So we were forced to let it be, and 
down it went into the ditch.” 


OUR LAST SHORE-DINNER. 


44 * 


“We blew it up rather than surrender,” said Dora. 
“ We did. Only Harry always forgets, and says it was 
the water did it.” 

I drew near the rock that held the bath. I had never 
approached it from this side before. It was high above 
my head, and a stream of water was flowing from it I 
scrambled up, undressed and plunged into its dark hol- 
low, where I felt like one of the sea-beasts of which I 
had been dreaming, down in the caves of the unvisited 
ocean. But the sun was over my head, and the air with 
an edge of the winter was about me. I dressed quickly, 
descended on the other side of the rock, and wandered 
again on the sands to seaward of the breakwater, 
which lay above looking dry and weary, and worn with 
years of contest with the waves, which had at length 
withdrawn defeated to their own country, and left it ai 
if to victory and a useless age of peace. How different 
was the scene when a raving mountain of water filled all 
the hollow where I now wandered, and rushed over the 
top of that mole now so high above me, and I had to 
cling to its stones to keep me from being carried off like 
a bit of floating sea-weed 1 This was the loveliest and 
strangest part of the shore. Several long low ridges oi 
rock, of whose existence I scarcely knew, worn to a level 
with the sand, hollowed and channelled with the terrible 
run of the tide across them, and looking like the old 
and outworn cheek-teeth of some awful beast of prey, 
stretched out seawards. Here and there amongst them 
rose a well-known rock, but now so changed in look by 
being lifted all the height beiffeen the base on th« 


*42 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


waters, and the second base in the sand, that I 
wondered at each, walking round and viewing it on all 
sides. It seemed almost a fresh growth out of the 
garden of the shore, with uncouth hollows around its 
fungous root, and a forsaken air about its brows as :t 
stood in the dry sand and looked seaward. But what 
made the chief delight of the spot, closed in by rocks 
from the open sands, was the multitude of fairy rivers 
that flowed across it to the sea. The gladness these 
streams gave me I cannot communicate. The tide had 
filled thousands of hollows in the breakwater, hundreds 
of cracked basins in the rocks, huge sponges of sand ; 
from all of which — from cranny and crack, and oozing 
sponge — the water flowed in restricted haste back, back 
to the sea, tumbling in tiny cataracts down the faces ot 
the rocks, bubbling from their roots as from wells, 
gathering in tanks of sand, and overflowing in broad, 
shallow streams, curving and sweeping in their sandy 
channels just like the great rivers of a continent ; — here 
spreading into smooth, silent lakes and reaches, here 
babbling along in ripples and waves innumerable — flow- 
ing, flowing, to lose their small beings in the same ocean 
f iat met on the other side the waters of the Mississippi, 
the Orinoco, the Amazon. All their channels were of 
golden sand, and the golden sunlight was above and 
through and in them all : gold and gold met, with the 
waters between. And what gave an added life to l heir 
motion was that all the ripples made shadows on the 
clear yellow below them. The eye could not see the 
rippling on the surface ; but the sun saw it, and drew it 


OUR LAST SHORE-DINNEK. 


443 


in multitudinous shadowy motion upon the sand, with 
the play of a thousand fancies of gold burnished and 
dead, of sunlight and yellow, trembling, melting, curving, 
blending, vanishing ever, ever renewed. It was as if all 
the water-marks upon a web of golden silk had been set 
in wildest yet most graceful curvilinear motion by the 
breath of a hundred playful zephyrs. My eye could not 
be filled with seeing. I stood in speechless delight for 
a while, gazing at the “ endless ending” which was “ the 
humour of the game,” and thinking how in all God’s 
works the laws of beauty are wrought out in evanish- 
ment, in birth and death. There, there is no hoarding, 
but an ever fresh creating, an eternal flow of life from 
the heart of the All-beautiful. Hence, even the heart of 
man cannot hoard. His brain or his hand may gather 
into its box and hoard , but the moment the thing has 
passed into the box, the heart has lost it and is hungry 
again. If man would have> it is the giver he must have ,* 
the eternal, the original, the ever-outpouring is alone 
within his reach ; the everlasting creation is his heritage. 
Therefore, all that he makes must be free to come and 
go through the heart of his child ; he can enjoy it only 
as it passes, can enjoy only its life, its soul, its vision, 
its meaning, not itself. To hoard rubies and sapphires 
is as useless and hopeless for the heart, as if I were to 
attempt to hoard this marvel of sand and water and sun- 
light in the same iron chest with the musty deeds of my 
wife’s inheritance. 

“ Father,” I murmured half aloud, “ th 3U alone ax^ 
and I am because thou art Thy will shall be mine.* 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


I know that I must have spoken aloud, because I 
remember the start of consciousness and discomposure 
occasioned by the voice of Percivale greeting me. 

“ I beg your pardon,” he added, “ I did not mean to 
startle you, Mr Walton. I thought you were only look- 
ing at Nature’s childplay — not thinking.” 

“ I know few things more fit to set one thinking than 
what you have very well called Nature’s childplay,” J 
returned. “Is Nature very heartless now, do you think 
to go on with this kind of thing at our feet, when away 
up yonder lies the awful London with so many sores 
festering in her heart 1 ” 

“You must answer your own question, Mr Walton. 
You know I cannot. I confess I feel the difficulty deeply. 
I will go further and confess that the discrepancy makes 
me doubt many things I would gladly believe. I know 
you are able to distinguish between a glad unbelief and a 
sorrowful doubt.” 

“ Else were I unworthy of the humblest place in the 
kingdom — unworthy to be a doorkeeper in the house of 
my God,” I answered, and recoiled from the sound of 
my own words, for they seemed to imply that I believed 
myself worthy of the position I occupied. I hastened to 
correct them. “ But do not mistake my thoughts,’’ [ 
said: “ I do not dream of worthiness in the way of 
honour — only of fitness for the work to be done. For 
that I think God has fitted me in some measure. The 
doorkeeper’s office may be given him not because he 
has done some great deed worthy of the honour, but 
because he can sweep the porcnand scour the threshold, 


OUR LAST SHORE-DINNER. 


445 


and will, in the main, try to keep them clean. That if 
all the worthiness I dare to claim, even to hope that 1 
possess.” 

“No one who knows you can mistake your words, 
except wilfully,” returned Percivale, courteously. 

“Thank you,” I said. “Now I will just ask you, in 
reference to the contrast between human life and nature, 
how you will go back to your work in London after 
seeing all this child’s and other play of Nature ? Suppose 
you had had nothing here but rain and high winds and sea 
fogs, would you have been better fitted for doing some- 
thing to comfort those who know nothing of such influ- 
ences than you will be now ? One of the most important 
qualifications of a sick nurse is a ready smile. A long- 
faced nurse in a sick room is a visible embodiment and 
presence of the disease against which the eager life of the 
patient is fighting in agony. Such ought to be banished, 
with their black dresses and their mourning-shop looks, 
from every sick chamber, and permitted to minister only 
to the dead, who do not mind looks. With what a 
power of life and hope does a woman — young or old, I 
do not care — with a face of the morning, a dress like 
the spring, a bunch of wild flowers in her hand, with the 
dew upon them, and perhaps in her eyes too — I don’t 
object to that — that is sympathy, not the worship ol 
darkness, — with what a message from nature and life 
does she, looking death in the face with a smile, dawn 
upon the vision of the invalid ! She brings a little health, 
a little strength to fight, a little hope to endure, actually 
lapt in the folds of her gracious garments. For the £ 0 <J 


446 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


itself can do more than any medicine, if it be fed with 
the truth of life.” 

* But are you not — I beg your pardon for interposing 
on your eloquence with dull objection,” said Percivale — 
“ are you not begging all the question? Is life such an 
affair of sunshine and gladness ? ” 

“ If life is not, then I confess all this show of Nature 
is worse than vanity : it is a vile mockery. Life is glad- 
ness : it is the death in it that makes the misery. We 
call life-in-death life, and hence the mistake. If gladness 
were not at the root, whence its opposite sorrow against 
which we arise, from which we recoil, with which we 
fight 1 We recognize it as death — the contrary of life. 
There could be no sorrow but for a recognition of pri- 
mordial bliss. This in us that fights must be life. It is 
of the nature of light, not of darkness. Darkness is nothing 
until the light comes. This very childplay, as you call 
it, of nature, is her assertion of the secret that life is the 
deepest — that life shall conquer death : those who believe 
this must bear the good news to them that sit in dark- 
ness and the shadow of death. Our Lord has conquered 
death — yea, the moral death that he called the world— 
and now having sown the seed of light, the harvest is 
springing in human hearts — is springing in this dance 
of radiance— and will grow and grow until the hearts of 
the children of the kingdom shall frolic in the sunlight 
of the Father’s presence. Nature has God at her heart. 
She is but the garment of the Invisible. God wears his 
singing robes in a day like this, and says to his children, 
* Be not afraid ; your brothers and sisters up there in 


OUR LAST SHORE-DINNER. 


447 


London are in my hands : go and help them. I ain 
with you. Rear to them the message of joy. Tell them 
to be of good cheer : I have overcome the world. Tell 
them to endure hunger, and not sin ; to endure passion, 
and not yield ; to admire, and not desire. Sorrow and 
pain are serving my ends ; for by them will I slay sin, 
and save my children.’ ” 

41 I wish I could believe as you do, Mr Walton.” 

“I wish you could. But God will teach you if you 
are willing to be taught.” 

“ I desire the truth, Mr Walton.” 

“ God bless you. God is blessing you,” I said. 

44 Amen,” returned Percivale devoutly, and we strolled 
away together in silence towards the cliffs. 

The recession of the tide allowed us to get far enough 
away from the face of the rocks to see the general effect. 
With the lisping of the inch-deep wavelets at our heels 
we stood and regarded the worn yet defiant, the wasted 
and jagged yet reposeful face of the guardians of the 
shore. 

44 Who could imagine, in vreather like this, and with 
this baby of a tide lying behind us, low at our feet, and 
shallow as the water a schoolboy pours upon his slate to 
wash it withal, that those grand cliffs before us bear on 
their front the scars and dints of centuries, of chiliads of 
stubborn resistance, of passionate contest with this same 
creature that is at this moment unable to rock the 
cradle of an infant? Look behind you, at your feet, 
Mr Percivale : look before you at the chasms, rents, 
caves, and hollows, of those rocks.” 


44 » 


THE SE4.BOARD PARISH. 


** I wish you were a painter, Mr Walton/’ he said. 

“I wish I were.” I returned. “At least, I know I 
should rejoice in it, it it had been given me to be oner 
But why do you say so now?” 

“ Because you have always some individual predomi- 
nating idea, which would give interpretation to nature 
while it gave harmony, reality, and individuality to your 
representation of her.” 

“ I know what you mean,” I answered ; “ but I have 
no gift whatever in that direction. I have no idea of 
drawing, or of producing the effects of light and shade, 
though I think I have a little notion of colour — perhaps 
about as much as the little London boy, who stopped a 
friend of mine once to ask the way to the field where 
the buttercups grew, had of nature.” 

“ I wish I could ask your opinion of some of my pic- 
tures.” 

“ That I should never presume to give. I could only 
tell you what they made me feel, or perhaps only think. 
Some day I may have the pleasure of looking at 
them.” 

“ May I offer you my address 1 ” he said, and took a 
card from his pocket-book. “ It is a poor place, but if 
you should happen to think of me when you are next 
in London, I shall be honoured by your paying me a 
visit.” 

“ I shall be most happy,” I returned, taking his card. 
— “ Did it ever occur to you, in reference to the subject 
we were upon a few minutes ago, how little you can do 
without shadow in making a Dicture I K 


OUR LAST SHORE-DINNER. 


449 


“ Little indeed,” answered Percivale. “ In fact it 
would be no picture at all.” 

“ I doubt if the world would fare better without its 
shadows.” 

“ But it would be a poor satisfaction with regard to the 
nature of God, to be told that he allowed evil for artistic 
purposes.” 

“ It would indeed, if you regard the world as a picture. 
But if you think of his art as expended, not upon the 
making of a history or a drama, but upon the making of 
an individual, a being, a character, then I think a great 
part of the difficulty concerning the existence of evil 
which oppresses you will vanish. So long as a creature 
has not sinned, sir* is possible to him. Does it seem in- 
consistent with the character of God that in order that 
sin should become impossible he should allow sin to 
come 1 that, in order that his creatures should choose the 
good and refuse 'the evil, in order that they might be- 
come such with their whole nature infinitely enlarged, as 
to turn from sin with a perfect repugnance of the will, 
he should allow them to fall 1 that, in order that, from 
being sweet childish children they should become noble, 
child-like men and women, he should let them try to 
walk alone ? Why should he not allow the possible in 
order that it should become impossible 1 for possible it 
would ever hav 2 been, even in the midst of all the bless- 
edness until it had been, and had been thus destroyed. 
Thus sin is slain, uprooted. And the war must ever exist 
it seems to me, where there is creation still going on. 
How could I be content to guard my children so that 


45 ® 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


they should never have temptation, knowing that in all 
probability they would fail if at any moment it should 
cross their path 1 Would the deepest communion of father 
and child ever be possible between us? Evil would 
ever seem to be in the child, so long as it was possible 
it should be there developed. And if this can be said 
for the existence of moral evil, the existence of all other 
evil becomes a comparative trifle ; nay, a positive good, 
for by this the other is combated.” 

** I think I understand you,” returned Percivale. " I 
will think over what you have said. These are very diffi- 
cult questions.” 

“ Very. I don’t think argument is of much use about 
them, except as it may help to quiet a man’s uneasiness 
a little, and so give his mind peace to think about duty. 
For about the doing of duty there can be no question 
once it is seen. And the doing of duty is the shortest — 
in very fact, the only way into the light.” 

As we spoke, we had turned from the cliffs, and wan- 
dered back across the salt streams to the sands beyond. 
From the direction of the house came a little procession 
of servants, with Walter at their head, bearing the pre- 
parations for oar dinner — over the gates of the lock, 
down the sides of the embankment of the canal, and 
across the sands, in the direction of the children, who 
were still playing merrily. 

“ Will you join our early dinner, which is to be out of 
dcors, as you see, somewhere hereabout on the sands ? • 
I said. 

“ I shall be delighted,” he answered, “ if you will let 


OUR LAST SHORE-DINNER. 


45 * 


tne be of some use first. I presume you mean to bring 
your invalid out.” 

“Yes; and you shall help me to carry her, if yon 
will.” 

“ That is what I hoped,” said Percivale ; and we went 
together towards the parsonage. 

As we approached, I saw Wynnie sitting at the draw- 
ing-room window ; but when we entered the room, she 
was gone. My wife was there, however. 

“ Where is Wynnie 1 ” I asked. 

“ She saw you coming,” she answered, " and went to 
get Connie ready ; for I guessed Mr Percivale had come 
to help you to carry her out.” 

But I could not help doubting there might be more 
than that in Wynnie’s disappearance. “ What if she 
should have fallen in love with him,” I thought, “ and 
he should never say a word om the subject] That would 
be dreadful for us all” 

They had been repeatedly but not very much together 
of late, and I was compelled to allow to myself that 
if they did fall in love with each other it would be 
very natural on both sides, for there was evidently a great 
mental resemblance between them, so that they could 
not help sympathizing with each other’s peculiarities. 
And any one could see what a fine couple they would 
make. 

Wynnie was much taller than Connie — almost the 
height of her mother. She had a very fair skin, and 
brown hair, a broad forehead, a wise, thoughtful, often 
troubled face, a mouth that seldom smiled, but on which 


45 * 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


a smile seemed always asleep, and round soft cheeks 
that dimpled like water when she did smile. I have 
described Percivale before. Why should not two such 
walk together along the path to the gates of the light 1 
And yet I could not help some anxiety. I did not know 
anything of his history. I had no testimony concerning 
him from any one that knew him. His past life was a 
blank to me; his means of livelihood probably insuffi- 
cient — certainly, I judged, precarious, and his position in 
society — but there I checked myself : I had had enough 
of that kind of thing already. I would not willingly 
offend in that worldliness again. The God of the whole 
earth could not choose that I should look at such works 
of his hands after that fashion. And I was his servant — 
not Mammon’s or Belial’s. 

All this passed through my mind in about three 
turns of the winnowing fan of thought. Mr Perci- 
vale had begun talking to my wife, who took no pains 
to conceal that his presence was pleasant to her, and 
I went up-stairs, almost unconsciously, to Connie’s 
room. 

When I opened the door, forgetting to announce my 
approach as I ought to have done, I saw Wynnie leaning 
over Connie, and Connie’s arm round her waist. Wynnie 
started back, and Connie gave a little cry, for the jerk 
thus occasioned had hurt her. Wynnie had turned her 
head away, but turned it again at Connie’s cry, and I 
saw a tear on her face. 

“ My darlings, I beg your pardon,” I said. “ It was 
▼ery stupid of me not to knock at the door.” 


OUR LAST SHORE-DINNER. 


453 


Connie looked up at me with large resting eyes, and 
said — 

“ It *s nothing, papa. Wynnie is in one of her gloomy 
moods, and didn’t want you to see her crying. She gave 
me a little pull, that was all. It didn’t hurt me much, 
only I ’m such a goose ! I ’m in terror before the pain 
comes. Look at me,” she added, seeing doubtless, some 
perturbation on my countenance : “ I ’m all right now.** 
And she smiled in my face perfectly. 

I turned to Wynnie, put my arm about her, kissed her 
cheek, and left the room. I looked round at the door, 
and saw that Connie was following me with her eyes, but 
Wynnie’s were hidden in her handkerchief. 

I went back to the drawing-room, and in a few minutes 
Walter came to announce that dinner was about to be 
served. The same moment Wynnie came to say that 
Connie was ready. She did not lift her eyes, or approach 
to give Percivale any greeting, but went again as soon 
as she had given her message. I saw that he looked 
first concerned, and then thoughtful. 

“ Come, Mr Percivale,” I said, and he followed me 
up to Connie’s room. 

Wynnie was not there, but Connie lay, looking lovely, 
all ready for going. We lifted her, and carried her by 
the window out on the down, for the easiest way, though 
the longest, was by the path to the breakwater, along its 
broad back, and down from the end of it upon the sands. 
Before we reached the breakwater, I found that Wynnie 
was following behind us. We stopped in the middle of 
it. and set Connie down, as if I wanted to take breads 


454 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


But I had thought of something to say to her, which 1 
wanted Wynnie to hear without its being addressed to her. 

“ Do you see, Connie,” I said, “ how far off the 
water is?” 

" Yes, papa; it is a long way off. I wish I could get 
up and run down to it.” 

“ You can hardly believe that all between, all those 
rocks, and all that sand, will be covered before sunset.” 

“ I know it will be. But it doesn’t look likely — does 
it, papa?” 

“ Not the least likely, my dear. Do you remember 
that stormy night when I came through your room to go 
out for a walk in the dark ?” 

“ Remember it, papa? I cannot forget it. Every time 
I hear the wind blowing when I wake in the night, I 
fancy you are out in it, and have to wake myself up quite 
to get rid of the thought.” 

“ Well, Connie, look down into the great hollow 
there, with rocks and sand at the bottom of it, stretch- 
ing far away.” 

“ Yes, papa.” 

“ Now, look over the side of your litter. You see 
those holes all about between the stones.” 

“ Yes, papa.” 

“Well, one of those little holes saved my life that 
night, when the great gulf there was full of huge 
mounds of roaring water, which rushed across thU 
breakwater with force enough to sweep a whole cavalry 
regiment off its back.” 

“Papal” exclaimed Connie, turning pale. 


OUR LAST SHORE-DINNER. 


45 $ 


Then first I told her all the story. And Wynnie 
listened behind. 

“ Then I was right in being frightened, papa ! ” cried 
Connie, bursting into tears ; for since her accident she 
could not well command her feelings. 

“ You were right in trusting in God, Connie.* 

“ But you might have been drowned, papa!” she 
sobbed. 

“ Nobody has a right to say that anything might have 
been other than what has been. Before a thing has 
happened, we can say might or might not ; but that has 
to do only with our ignorance. Of course I am not 
speaking of things wherein we ought to exercise will and 
choice. That is our department — But this does not 
look like that now, does it? Think vdut a change, — 
from the dark night and the roaring water, to this fulness 
of sunlight and the bare sands, with the water lisping on 
their edge away there in the distance. Now, I want 
you to think that in life troubles will come which look 
as if they would never pass away; the night and the 
storm look as if they would last for ever, but the calm 
and the morning cannot be stayed ; the storm in its 
very nature is transient. The effort of Nature, as that 
of the human heart, ever is to return to its repose, for 
God is Peace.” 

“ But if you will excuse me, Mj* Walton,” said Perci- 
vale, “ you can hardly expect experience to be of use to 
any but those who have had it. It seems to me that its 
influences cannot be imparted.” 

w That depends on the amount of faith in those to 


456 


THE SEABOARD PARISH 


whom its results are offered. Of course, as experience, 
it can have no weight with another; for it is no longer 
experience. One remove, and it ceases. But faith in 
the person who has experienced can draw over or derive 
— to use an old Italian word — some of its benefits to 
him who has the faith. Experience may thus, in a 
sense, be accumulated, and we may go on to fresh 
experience of our own. At least I can hope that the 
experience of a father may take the form of hope in the 
minds of his daughters. Hope never hurt any one^» 
r.ever yet interfered with duty ; nay, always strengthens 
to the performance of duty, gives courage and clears the 
judgment. St Paul says we are saved by hope. Hope 
is the most rational thing in the universe. Even the 
ancient poets, who believed it was delusive, yet regarded 
it as an antidote given by the mercy of the gods against 
some at least of the ills of life.” 

“ But they counted it delusive. A wise man cannot 
consent to be deluded.” 

“ Assuredly not. The sorest truth rather than a false 
hope I But what is a false hope ? Only one that ought 
not to be fulfilled. The old poets could give themselves 
little room for hope, and less for its fulfilment ; for what 
were the gods in whom they believed — I cannot say, in 
whom they trusted ? Gods who did the best their own 
poverty of being was capable of doing for men when 
they gave them the illusion of hope. — But I see they are 
waiting for us below. One thing I repeat: the waves 
that foamed across the spot where we now stand are 
gone away, have sunk and vanished.” 


OUR LAST SHORE-DINNER. 


457 


u Bat they will come again, papa,” faltered Wynnie. 

“ And God will come with them, my love,” I said, as 
we lifted the litter. 

In a few minutes more we were all seated on the sand 
around a table-cloth spread upon it. I shall never forget 
the peace and the light outside and in, as far as I was con- 
cerned at least, and I hope the others too, that afternoon. 
The tide had turned, and the waves were creeping up 
over the level, soundless almost as thought ; but it would 
be time to go home long before they had reached us. 
The sun was in the western half of the sky, and now and 
then a breath of wind came from the sea, with a slight 
saw-edge in it, but not enough to hurt. Connie could 
stand much more in that way now. And when I saw 
how she could move herself on her couch, and thought 
how much she had improved since first she was laid upon 
it, hope for her kept fluttering joyously in my heart. I 
could not help fancying even that I saw her move her 
legs a little, but I could not be in the least sure ; and 
she, if she did move them, was clearly unconscious of it. 
Charles and Harry were every now and then starting up 
from their dinner and running off with a shout, to return 
with apparently increased appetite for the rest of it : and 
neither their mother nor I cared to interfere with the in- 
decorum. Dora alone took it upon her to rebuke them* 
Wynnie was very silent, but looked more cheerful. 
Connie seemed full of quiet bliss. My wife’s face was 
a picture of heavenly repose. The old nurse was walk- 
ing about with the baby, occasionally with one hand 
helping the other servants to wait upon us. They, too, 


458 


THE SEABOARD PARISH 


Beemed to have a share in the gladness of the hour, and, 
like Ariel, did their spiriting gently. 

“ This is the will of God,” I said, after the things were 
removed, and we had sat for a few moments in silence. 

“What is the will of God, husband ?” asked Ethel- 
wyn. 

“ Why, this, my love,” I answered ; “ this living air 
and wind, and sea, and light, and land all about us ; thi 
consenting consorting harmony of Nature, that mirrors 
a like peace in our souls. The perfection of such visions, 
the gathering of them all in one was, is, I should say, in 
the face of Christ Jesus. You will say that face was 
troubled sometimes. Yes, but with a trouble that broke 
not the music, but deepened the harmony. When he 
wept at the grave of Lazarus, you do not think it was 
for Lazarus himself, or for his own loss of him, that he 
wept ? That could not be, seeing he had the power to 
call him back when he would. The grief was for the 
poor troubled hearts left behind, to whom it was so 
dreadful because they had not faith enough in his Father, 
the God of life and love, who was looking after it all, 
full of tenderness and grace, with whom Lazarus was 
present and blessed. It was the aching, loving heart of 
humanity for which he wept, that needed God so awfully, 
and could not yet trust in him. Their brother was only 
hidden in the skirts of their Father’s garment, but they 
could not believe that : they said he was dead — lost — 
away — all gone, as the children say. And it was so sad 
to think of a whole world full of the grief of death, that 
he could not bear it without the human tears to help his 


OUR LAST SHORE-DINNER. 


459 


heart, as they help ours. It was for our dark sorrows 
that he wept. But the peace could be no less plain on 
the face that saw God. Did you ever think of that 
wonderful saying : * Again a little while, and ye shall 
see me, because I go to the Father 1 ’ The heart of 
man would have joined the ‘because I go to the Father’ 
with the former result — the not seeing of him. The 
heart of man is not able, without more and more light, 
to understand that all vision is in the light of the Father 
Because Jesus went to the Father, therefore the disciples 
saw him tenfold more. His body no longer in their 
eyes, his very being, his very self was in their hearts— 
not in their affections only — in their spirits, their heavenly 
consciousness.” 

As I said this, a certain hymn, for which I had and 
have an especial affection, came into my mind, and, 
without prologue or introduction, I repeated it 

If I Him but have, 

If he be but mine, 

If my heart, hence to the grave. 

Ne’er forgets his love divine — 

Know I nought of sadness, 

Feel I nought but worship, love, and gladness. 

If T Him but have, 

Glad with all I part ; 

Follow on my pilgrim staff 
My Lord only, with true heart; 

Leave them, nothing saying, 

On broad, bright, and crowded highways straying 

If I Him but have^ 

Glad I fall asleep ; 


4&> 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


Aye the flood that his heart gave 
Strength within my heart shall keep ; 

And with soft compelling 

Make it tender, through and through it swelling. 

If I Him but have, 

Mine the world I hail ! 

Glad as cherub smiling grave, 

Holding back the virgin’s veil. 

Sunk and lost in seeing, 

Earthly fears have died from all my being. 

Where I have but Him 
Is my Fatherland; 

And all gifts and graces come 
Heritage into my hand : 

Brothers long deplored 
I in his disciples find restored. 

“What a lovely hymn, papa!” exclaimed Connie. 
She could always speak more easily than either her 
mother or sister. “ Who wrote it ? ” 

“Friedrich von Hardenberg, known, where he is 
known, as Novalis.” 

“ But he must have written it in German. Did you 
tianslate it?” 

“Yes. You will find, I think, that I have kept form, 
thought, and feeling, however I may have failed in 
making an English poem of it.” 

“ Oh, you dear papa ! It is lovely ! Is it long since 
you did it ? ” 

“Years before you were born, Connie.” 

“ To think of you having lived so long, and being 
one of us ! ” she returned. “ Was he a Roman Catholic, 
papa?” 


OUR LAST SHORE-DINNER. 


461 


“ No, he was a Moravian. At least, his parents were. 
I don’t think he belonged to any section of the church 
in particular.” 

“ But oughtn’t he, papa?” 

“Certainly not, my dear, except he saw good rea- 
son for it. But what is the use of asking such questions, 
after a hymn like that ? ” 

“ Oh, I didn’t think anything bad, papa, I assure you. 
It was only that I wanted to know more about him.” 

The tears were in her eyes, and I was sorry I had 
treated as significant what was really not so. But the 
constant tendency to consider Christianity as associated 
of necessity with this or that form of it, instead of as 
obedience to Christ simply, had grown more and more 
repulsive to me as I had grown myself, for it always 
seemed like an insult to my brethren in Christ ; hence, 
the least hint of it in my children I was too ready to be 
down upon like a most unchristian ogre. I took her 
hand in mine and she was comforted, for she saw in my 
face that I was sorry, and yet she could see that there 
was reason at the root of my haste. 

“ But,” said Wynnie, who, I thought afterwards, must 
have strengthened herself to speak from the instinctive 
desire to show Percivale how far she was from being 
out of sympathy with what he might suppose formed a 
barrier between him and me — “ But,” she said, “ the 
lovely feeling in that poem seems to me, as in all the rest 
of such poems, to belong only to the New 'Testament, 
and have nothing to do with this world round about 
us. These things look as il they were only lor draw* 


4 6* 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


ing and painting and being glad in, not as if they had 
relations with all those awful and solemn things. As 
soon as I try to get the two together, I lose both of 
them.” 

"That is because the human mind must begin with 
one thing and grow to the rest. At first, Christianity 
seemed to men to have only to do with their conscience. 
That was the first relation, of course. But even with 
art it was regarded as having no relation except for the 
presentment of its history. Afterwards, men forgot the 
conscience almost, in trying to make Christianity com- 
prehensible to the understanding. Now, I trust, we are 
beginning to see that Christianity is everything or no 
thing. Either the whole is a lovely fable setting forth 
the loftiest longing of the human soul after the vision of 
the divine, or it is such a fact as is the heart not only oi 
theology so called, but of history, politics, science, and 
art: the treasures of the Godhead must be hidden in 
him, and therefore by him only can be revealed. This 
will interpret all things, or it has not yet been. Teachers 
of men have not taught this, because they have not 
seen it If we do not find him in Nature, we may con 
elude either that we do not understand the expression 
of Nature, or have mistaken ideas or poor feelings about 
him. It is one great business in our life to find the in- 
terpretation which will render this harmony visible. Till 
we find it, we have not seen him to be all in all. Re- 
cognizing a discord when they touched the notes of 
nature and society, the hermits forsook the instrument 
altogether, and contented themselves with a partial sym« 


OUR LAST SHORE-DINNER. 


463 


phony, lofty, narrow, and weak. Their example, more 
or less, has been followed by almost all Christians. Ex- 
clusion is so much the easier way of getting harmony in 
the orchestra than study, insight, and interpretation, 
that most have adopted it. It is for us, and all who 
have hope in the infinite God, to widen its basis as we 
may, to search and find the true tone, and right idea, 
place, and combination of instruments, until to our en- 
raptured ear they all, with one voice of multiform yet 
harmonious utterance, declare the glory of God and of 
his Christ.” 

“A grand idea,” said Percivale. 

“ Therefore likely to be a true one,* I returned 
“People find it hard to believe grand things; but why? 
If there be a God, is it not likely everything is grand, 
save where the reflection of his great thoughts is shaken, 
broken, distorted by the watery mirrors of our unbeliev- 
ing and troubled souls? Things ought to be grand, 
simple, and noble. The ages of eternity will* go on 
showing that such they are and ever have been. God 
will yet be victorious over our wretched unbeliefs.” 

I was sitting facing the sea, but with my eyes fixed on 
the sand, boring holes in it with my stick, for I could 
talk better when I did not look my familiar faces in the 
face. I did not feel thus in the pulpit. There I sought 
the faces of my flock to assist me in speaking to their 
needs. As I drew to the close of my last monologue, 
a colder and stronger blast from the sea blew in my face. 
I lifted my head, and saw that the tide had crept up a 
long way, and was coming in fast A luminous fog had 


464 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


sunk down over the western horizon, and almost hidden 
the sun, had obscured the half of the sea, and destroyed 
all our hopes of a sunset. A certain veil as of the com- 
monplace, like that which so often settles down over the 
spirit of man after a season of vision, and glory, and 
gladness, had dropped over the face of Nature. The 
wind came in little bitter gusts across the dull waters. It 
was time to lift Connie and take her home. 

This was the last time we ate together on the open 
shore 


CHAFER XXXIII. 

A PASTOP.4L VTSTT. 



|HE next morning rose neither “ chercheft 

in a comely cloud,” nor “ roab’d in flames 
and amber light,” but covered all in a rainy 
mist, which the wind mingled with salt spray 
corn from the tops of the waves. Every now and then 
che wind blew a blastful of larger drops against the 
window of my study with an angry clatter and clash, 
as if daring me to go out and meet its ire. The earth 
was very dreary, for there were no shadows anywhere. 
The sun was hustled away by the crowding vapours, 
and earth, sea, and sky were possessed by a gray spirit 
that threatened w r rath. The breakfast bell rang, and 
I went down, expecting to find my Wynnie, who was 
always down first to make the tea, standing at the win- 
dow with a sad face, giving fit response to the aspect 
of nature without, her soul talking with the gray spirit : 

I did find her at the window, looking out upon the 

j a 


466 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


restless tossing of the waters, but with no despondent 
answer to the trouble of nature. On the contrary, her 
cheek, though neither rosy nor radiant, looked luminous, 
and her eyes were flashing out upon the ebb-tide which 
was sinking away into the troubled ocean beyond. Does 
my girl-reader expect me to tell her next that something 
had happened ? that Percivale had said something to 
her? or that at least he had just passed the window, 
and given her a look which she might interpret as she 
pleased? I must disappoint her. It was nothing ot 
the sort. I knew the heart and feeling of my child. It 
was only that kind nature was in sympathy with her 
mood. The girl was always more peaceful in storm 
than in sunshine. I remembered that now. A move- 
ment of life instantly began in her when the obligation 
of gladness had departed with the light. Her own 
being arose to provide for its own needs. She could 
smile now when nature required from her no smile in 
response to hers. And I could not help saying to 
myself : “ She must marry a poor man some day. She 
is a creature of the north, and not of the south. The 
hot sun of prosperity would wither her up. Give her 
a bleak hill-side, and a glint or two of sunshine between 
the hail-storms, and she will live and grow. Give her 
poverty and love, and life will be interesting to her as 
a romance. Give her money and position, and she will 
grow dull and haughty ; she will believe in nothing 
that poet can sing or architect build. She will, like 
Cassius, “ scorn her spirit for being moved to smile at 
anything.” 


A PASTORAL VISIT. 


467 


I had stood regarding her for a moment. She turned 
and saw me, and came forward with her usual morning 
greeting. 

“ I beg your pardon, papa : I thought it was Walter.* 

“I am glad to see a smile on your face, my love.” 

u Don’t think me very disagreeable, papa. I know I 
am a trouble to you. But I am a trouble to myself first. 
I fear I have a discontented mind and a complaining 
temper. But I do try, and I will try hard to overcome 
it” 

“ It will not get the better of you, so long as you do 
the duty of the moment. But I think, as I told you 
before, that you are not very well, and that your indis- 
position is going to do you good by making you think 
about some things you are ready to think about, but 
which you might have banished if you had been in good 
health and spirits. You are feeling, as you never felt 
before, that you need a presence in your soul of which 
at least you haven’t enough yet. But I preached quite 
enough to you yesterday, and I won’t go on the same 
way to-day again. Only I wanted to comfort you. 
Come and give me my breakfast.” 

“ You do comfort me, papa,” she answered, approach- 
ing the table. “ I know I don’t show what I feel as I 
ought, but you do comfort me much. Don’t you like a 
day like this, papa ? ” 

“ I do, my dear. I always did. And I think you take 
after me in that, as you do in a good many things besides. 
That is how I understand you so well.” 

“Do I really take after you, papal Are you surj 


468 


HE SEABOARD PARISH. 


that you understand me so well ? ” she asked, brightening 
up. 

“ I know I do,” I returned, replying to her last ques« 
tion. 

“Better than I do myself?” she asked, with an arch 
smile. 

“Considerably, if I mistake not,” I answered. 

How delightful ! To think that I am understood 
even when I don’t understand myself! ” 

“ But even if I am wrong, you are yet understood. 
The blessedness of life is that we can hide nothing from 
God. If we could hide anything from God, that hidden 
thing would by and by turn into a terrible disease. It is 
the sight of God that keeps and makes things clean. But 
as we are both, by mutual confession, fond of this kind 
of weather, what do you say to going out with me ? I 
have to visit a sick woman.” 

“You don’t mean Mrs Coombes, papa?” 

'No, my dear. I did not hear she was ill.** 

“ Oh, I daresay it is nothing much. Only old nursey 
said yesterday she was in bed with a bad cold, or some- 
thing of that sort.” 

“ We ’ll call and inquire as we pass, — that is, if you 
are inclined to go with me.” 

“ How can you put an if to that, papa ? ” 

“ I have just had a message from that cottage that 
stands all alone on the corner of Mr Barton’s farm 
— over the clifl, you know — that the woman is ill, and 
would like to see me. So the sooner we start, the 
Ueuei.” 


A PASTORAL VISIT. 


469 


“ I shall have done my breakfast in five minutes, 
papa. Oh! here’s mamma. Mamma, I’m going out 
for a walk in the rain with papa. You won’t mind, will 
you?” 

“ I don’t think it will do you any harm, my dear. 
That ’s all I mind, you know. It was only once or twice 
when you were not well that I objected to it. I quite 
agree with your papa, that only lazy people are glad to 
6tay in-doors when it rains.” 

“ And it does blow so delightfully ! ” said Wynnie, 
as she left the room to put on her long cloak and her 
bonnet 

We called at the sexton’s cottage, and found 
him sitting gloomily by the low window, looking sea- 
ward. 

“I hope your wife is not very poorly, Coombes,” I 
said. 

“ No, sir. She be very comfortable in bed. Bed ’s 
not a bad place to be in in such weather,” he answered, 
turning again a dreary look towards the Atlantic. “ Poor 
things ! ” 

“What a passion for comfort you have, Coombes! 
How does that come about, do you think ? * 

** I suppose I was made so, sir.” 

“ To be sure you were. God made you so.** 

“ Surely, sir. Who else 1 ” 

“ Then I suppose he likes making people comfortable 
If he makes people like to be comfortable.” 

“ It du look likely enough, sir.” 

u Then when he takes it out of your hands, you mustn't 


470 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


think he doesn’t look after the people you would make 
comfc rtable if you could.” 

“ I must mind my work, you know, sir.” 

“ Y 2S, surely. And you mustn’t want to take his out 
of his hands, and go grumbling as if you would do it so 
much better if he would only let you get your hand to 
it.” 

u I dare say you be right, sir,” he said. “ I must just 
go and have a look about though. Here’s Agnes. 
She ’ll tell you about mother.” 

He took his spade from the comer, and went out. 
He often brought his tools into the cottage. He had 
. «*rved the handle of his spade all over with the names 
of the people he had buried. 

“Tell your mother, Agnes, that I will call in the 
evening and see her, if she would like to see me. We 
are going now to see Mrs Stokes. She is very poorly, 
I hear.” 

“ Let us go through the churchyard, papa,” said 
Wynnie, “ and see what the old man is doing.” 

“ Very well, my dear. It is only a few steps round.” 

“Why do you humour the sexton’s foolish fancy so 
much, papa? It is such nonsense! You taught us it 
was, surely, in your sermon about the resurrection ? ” 

“ Most certainly, my dear. But it would be of no 
use to try to get it out of his head by any argument. 
He has a kind of craze in that direction. To get 
people’s hearts right is of much more importance than 
convincing their judgments. Right judgment will fol- 
low. All such fixed ideas should be encountered from 


A PASTORAL VISIT. 


47 * 


the deepest grounds of truth, and not from the outsides 
of their relations. Coombes has to be taught that God 
cares for the dead more than he does, and therefore it is 
unreasonable for him to be anxious about them.” 

When we reached the churchyard, we found the old 
man kneeling on a grave before its headstone. It was 
a very old one, with a death’s head and cross bones 
carved upon the top of it in very high relief. With his 
pocket-knife, he was removing the lumps of green moss 
out of the hollows of the eyes of the carven skull. We 
did not interrupt him, but walked past with a nod. 

“ You saw what he was doing, Wynnie 1 That re- 
I finds me of almost the only thing in Dante’s grand 
poem that troubles me. I cannot think of it without 
a renewal of my concern, though I have no doubt he is 
as sorry now as I am that ever he could have written it 
When, in the Inferno, he reaches the lowest region of 
torture, which is a solid lake of ice, he finds the lost 
plunged in it to various depths, some, if I remember 
rightly, entirely submerged, and visible only through 
the ice, transparent as crystal, like the insects found in 
amber. One man with his head only above the ice, ap- 
peals to him as condemned to the same punishment, 
to take pity on him, and remove the lumps of frozen 
tears from his eyes, that he may weep a little before 
they freeze again and stop the relief once more. Dante 
says to him, ‘ Tell me who you are, and if I do not 
assist you, I deserve to lie at the bottom of the ice 
myself.’ The man tells him who he is, and explains to 
him one awtul mystery of these regions. Then he say^ 


47 * 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


‘Now stretch forth thy hand, and open my eyes?'* 
4 And,* says Dante, ‘ I did not open them for him ; and 
rudeness to him was courtesy.’ ” 

“ But he promised, you said.” 

“ He did, and yet he did not do it ! Pity and truth 
had abandoned him together. One would think little 
of it, comparatively, were it not that Dante is so full of 
tenderness and grand religion. It is very awful, and 
may teach us many things.” 

“But what made you think of that now?” 

“ Merely what Coombes was about. The visual image 
was all He was scooping the green moss out of the 
eyes of the death’s head on the gravestone.” 

By this time we were on the top of the downs, and the 
wind was buffeting us, and every other minute assailing 
us with a blast of rain. Wynnie drew her cloak close? 
about her, bent her head towards the blast, and struggled 
on bravely by my side. No one who wants to enjoy a 
walk in the rain must carry an umbrella : it is pure folly. 
When we came to one of the stone fences, we cowered 
down by its side for a few moments to recover our 
breath, and then struggled on again. Anything like 
conversation was out of the question. At length we 
dropped into a hollow, which gave us a little repose. 
Down below, the sea was dashing into the mouth of the 
glen, or coomb, as they call it there. On the opposite 
side of the hollow, the little house to which we were 
going, stood up against the gray sky. 

“ I begin to doubt whether I ought to have brought 
you, Wynnie. It was thoughtless of me — I don’t mean 


PASTORAL VISIT. 


473 


for your sake, but because your presence may be em- 
barrassing in a small house, for probably the poor woman 
may prefer seeing me alone.*' 

“ I will go back, papa. I shan’t mind it a bit.* 

“ No. You had better come on. I shall not be long 
with her, I daresay. We may find some place that you 
can wait in. Are you wet 1 11 

“ Only my cloak. I am as dry as a tortoise inside.* 
u Come along then. We shall soon be there. 7 ' 

When we reached the house, I found that Wynnle 
would not be in the way. I left her seated by the 
kitchen fire, and was shown into the room where Mrs 
Stokes lay. I cannot say I perceived, but I guessed 
somehow, the moment I saw her, that there was some 
thing upon her mind. She was a hard-featured woman, 
with a cold troubled black eye that rolled restlessly 
about. She lay on her back, moving her head from side 
to side. When I entered, she only looked at me, and 
turned her eyes away towards the wall. I approached 
the bedside, and seated myself by it I always do so at 
once ; for the patient feels more at rest than if you stand 
tali up before her. I laid my hand on hers. 

“ Are you very ill, Mrs Stokes ? ” I said. 

“ Yes, very,” she answered with a groan. “ It be come 
to the last with me.” 

“ I hope not indeed, Mrs Stokes. It *s not come 
to the last with us, so long as we have a Father in 
heaven.” 

" Ah, but it be with me. He can't take any notice of 
the like of me.* 


♦74 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


u But indeed he does, whether you think it or not 
He takes notice of every thought we think, and every 
deed we do, and every sin we commit.” 

I said the last words with emphasis, for I suspected 
something more than usual upon her conscience. She 
gave another groan, but made no reply. I therefore 
went on. 

“Our Father in heaven is not like some fathers on 
earth, who so long as their children don’t bother them, 
let them do anything they like. He will not have them 
do what is wrong. He loves them too much for 
that” 

“ He won't look at me,” she said, half murmuring, 
half sighing it out, so that I could hardly hear what she 
said. 

“It is because he is looking at you that you are 
feeling uncomfortable,” I answered. “He wants you 
to confess your sins. I don’t mean to me, but to him- 
self; though if you would like to tell me anything, 
and I can help you, I shall be ve?y glad. You know 
Jesus Christ came to save us from our sins ; and 
that's why we call him our Saviour. But he can’t 
save us from our sins if we won’t confess that we have 
any.” 

“ I ’m sure I never said but what I be a great sinner, 
as well as other people.” 

‘You don’t suppose that ’s confessing your sins?” I 
said. “ I once knew a woman of veiy bad character, 
who allowed to me she was a great sinner ; but when I 
said, ‘ Yes : you have done so and so,’ she would not 


A PASTORAL VISIT. 


475 


allow one of those deeds to be worthy of being reckoned 
amongst her sins. When I asked her what great sins she 
had been guilty of, then, seeing these counted for nothing, 
I could get no more out of her than that she was a 
great sinner, like other people, as you have just been 
saying.” 

u I hope you don’t be thinking I ha* done anything of 
that sort ! ” she said, with wakening energy. “ No man 
or woman dare say I *ve done anything to be ashamed 
of.” 

“ Then you *ve committed no sins,” I returned. “ But 
why did you send for me ? You must have something to 
say to me.” 

“ I never did send for you. It must ha’ been my hus- 
band.” 

“ Ah, then, I *m afraid I *ve no business here !” I re- 
turned, rising. “ I thought you had sent for me.” 

She returned no answer. I hoped that by retiring I 
should set her thinking, and make her more willing to 
listen the next time I came. I think clergymen may do 
much harm by insisting when people are in a bad mood, 
as if they had everything to do, and the Spirit of God 
nothing at all. I bade her good-day, hoped she would 
be better soon, and returned to Wynnie. 

As we walked home together, I said — 

“ Wynnie, I was right. It would not have done ai all 
to take you into the sick room. Mrs Stokes hao not 
sent for me herself, and rather resented my appearance. 
But I think she will send for me before many days are 


over. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE ART OF NATURE. 

E had a week of hazy weather after this. 2 
spent it chiefly in my study and in Connie’s 
room. A world of mist hung over the sea. 
It refused to hold any communion with 
mortals. As if ill-tempered or unhappy, it folded itself 
in its mantle, and lay still. 

What was it thinking about? All Nature is so full of 
meaning, that we cannot help fancying sometimes that 
she knows her own meanings. She is busy with every 
human mood in turn, sometimes with ten of them at 
once, picturing our own inner world before us, that we 
may see, understand, develope, reform it. 

I was turning over some such thought in my mind 
one morning, when Dora knocked at the door, saying 
that Mr Percivale had called, and that mamma wa9 
busy, and would I mind if she brought him up to the 
*tudy. 




THE ART OF NATURE. 


471 


“Not in the least, my dear,” I answered ; “ I shall be 
very glad to see him 

“ Not much of weather for your sacred craft, Perci- 
vale,” I said, as he entered. “ I suppose if you weie 
asked to make a sketch to-day, it would be much the 
same as if a stupid woman were to ask you to take her 
portrait.” 

Not quite so bad as that,” said Percivale. 

4 Surely the human face is more than nature " 

* Nature is never stupid.” 

4 The woman might be pretty.” 

* Nature is full of beauty in her worst moods , while 
the prettier such a woman, the more stupid she would 
look, and the more irksome you would feel the task, for 
you could not help making claims upon her which you 
would never think of making upon Nature.” 

“ I daresay you are right. Such stupidity has a good 
deal to do with moral causes. You do not ever feel that 
Nature is to blame.” 

“ Nature is never ugly. She may be dull, sorrov/fui, 
troubled ; she may be lost in tears and pallor, but she 
cannot be ugly. It is only when you rise into animal 
nature that you find ugliness.” 

u True in the main only ; for no lines of absolute 
division can be drawn in nature : I have seen ugly 
flowers.” 

“ I grant it. But they are exceptional. And none of 
them are without beauty.” 

“ Surely not. The ugliest soul even is not without 
iome beauty. But I grant you that the higher you rise 


478 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


the more is ugliness possible, just because the greater 
beauty is possible. There is no ugliness to equal in ita 
repulsiveness the ugliness of a beautiful face.*’ 

A pause followed 

“ I presume,” I said, “ you are thinking of returning 
to London now. There seems so little to be gained by 
remaining here. When this weather begins to show 
itself I could wish myself in my own parish. But I am 
sure the change, even through the winter, will be good 
for my daughter.” 

“ I must be going soon,” he answered. “ But it would 
be too bad to take offence at the old lady’s first touch of 
temper. I mean to wait and see whether we shall not 
have a little bit of St Martin’s summer, as Shakspere calls 
it ; after which, hail London, queen of smoke and ” ■ 

“And what?” I asked, seeing he hesitated. 

“ ‘ And soap/ I was fancying you would say. For you 
never will allow the worst of things, Mr Walton.” 

“ No, surely I will not. For one thing, the worst has 
never been seen by anybody yet We have no experi- 
ence to justify it.” 

We were chatting in this loose manner, when Walter 
came to the door to tell me that a messenger had come 
from Mrs Stokes. 

I went down to see him, and found her husband. 

“ My wife be very bad, sir,” he said. * I wish you 
could come and see her.” 

“ Does she want to see me?” I asked. 

“ She ’s been more uncomfortable than ever since you 
was there last,” he said. 


THE ART OF NATURE. 


479 


“ But, M T repeated, “ has she said she would like to 
see me ? ” 

“ I can’t say it, sir,” answered the man. 

“ Then it is you who want me to see her 1 ? ” 

u Yes, sir. But I be sure she do want to see you. I 
know her way, you see, sir. She never would say she 
wanted anything in her life. She would always leave 
you to find it out. So I got sharp at that, sir.” 

“ And then, would she allow she had wanted it when 
you got it her 1 ” 

“ No, never, sir. She be peculiar — my wife. She 
always be.” 

“Does she know that you have come to ask me 
now?” 

“No, sir.” 

“ Have you courage to tell her?” 

The man hesitated. 

“ If you haven’t courage to tell her,” I resumed, “ 1 
Kav' nothing more to say. I can’t go ; or, rather, I will 
not $o.” 

‘ i will tell her, sir.” 

«• Then you will tell her that I refused to come until 
she sent for me herself.” 

“ Ben’t that rather hard on a dying woman, sir ?” 

“ I have my reasons. Except she send for me herself, 
the moment I go she will take refuge in the fact that she 
did not send for me. I know your wife’s peculiarity too, 
Mr Stokes.” 

“ Well, I will tell her, sir. It’s time to speak my own 

mind.” 


4 &> 


THE SEABOARD PARISH 


“ I think so. It was time long ago. When she sends 
for me, if it be in the middle of the night, I shall be with 
her at once.” 

He left me and I returned to Percivale. 

“ I was just thinking before you came,” I said, u about 
the relation of Nature to our inner world. You know I 
am quite ignorant of your art, but I often think about the 
truths that lie at the root of it.” 

"I am greatly obliged to you,” he said, “for talking 
about these things. I assure you it is of more service 
to me than any professional talk. I always think 
the professions should not herd together so much 
as they do; they want to be shone upon from other 
quarters.” 

“ I believe we have all to help each other, Percivale. 
The sun himself could give us no light that would be 
of any service to us but for the reflective power of the 
airy particles through which he shines. But anything I 
know I have found out merely by foraging for my own 
necessities.” 

“That is just what makes the result valuable,” he re- 
plied. “ Tell me what you were thinking.” 

“ I was thinking,” I answered, “ how every one likes 
to see his own thoughts set outside of him, that he 
may contemplate them objectively , as the philosophers 
call it. He likes to see the other side of them, as it 
were.” 

“Yes, that is, of course, true; else I suppose, there 
would be no art at all.” 

** Surely. But that is not the aspect in which I was 


THE ART OF NATURE. 


481 


considering the question. Those who can so set them 
forth are artists ; and however they may fail of effecting 
such a representation of their ideas as will satisfy them- 
selves, they yet experience satisfaction in the measure in 
which they have succeeded. But there are many more 
men who cannot yet utter their ideas in any form. Mind, 
I do expect that, if they will only be good, they shall have 
this power some day ; for I do think that many things 
we call differences in kind, may in God’s grand scale 
prove to be only differences in degree. And indeed the 
artist — by artist, I mean, of course, architect, musician, 
painter, poet, sculptor — in many things requires it just 
as much as the most helpless and dumb of his brethren, 
seeing in proportion to the things that he can do, he is 
aware of the things he cannot do, the thoughts he cannot 
express. Hence arises the enthusiasm with which people 
hail the work of an artist ; they rejoice, namely, in seeing 
their own thoughts, or feelings, or something like them, 
expressed ; and hence it comes that of those who have 
money, some hang their walls with pictures of their own 
choice, others 

“I beg your pardon,” said Percivale, interrupting; 
4 but most people, I fear, hang their walls with pictures 
of other people’s choice, for they don’t buy them at all 
till the artist has got a name.” 

*' That is true. And yet there is a shadow of choice 
% ven there ; for they won’t at least buy what they dis- 
like. And again the growth in popularity may be only 
what first attracted their attention — not det^mined theil 
choice.” 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


4$2 


“ But there are others who only buy them for their 
value in the market." 

** 4 Of such is not the talk,* as the Germans would say. 
In as far as your description applies, such are only 
tradesmen, and have no claim to be considered now.** 

"Then I beg your pardon for interrupting. I ara 
punished more than I deserve, if you have lost your 
thread.” 

“ I don’t think I have. Let me see. Yes. I was 
saying that people hang their walls with pictures of their 
choice ; or provide music, &c., of their choice. Let me 
keep to the pictures : their choice, consciously or un 
consciously, is determined by some expression that these 
pictures give to what is in themselves — the buyers, I 
mean. They like to see their own feelings outside of 
themselves." 

“ Is there not another possible motive — that the pic- 
tures teach them something?” 

“ That, I venture to think, shows a higher moral con- 
dition than the other, but still partakes of the other ; for 
it is only what is in us already that makes us able to lay 
hold of a lesson. It is there in the germ, else nothing 
from without would wake it up.” 

"1 do not quite see what all this has to do with 
Nature and her influences." 

“ One step more, and I shall arrive at it You will 
admit that the pictures and objects of art of all kinds, 
with which a man adorns the house he has chosen or 
built to live in, have thenceforward not a little to do 
with the education of his tastes and feelings. Even 


THE ART OF NATURE. 


483 


when he is not aware of it, they are working upon him, 
for good, if he has chosen what is good, which alone 
shall be our supposition.” 

“ Certainly ; that is clear.” 

“Now I come to it. God, knowing our needs, built 
our house for our needs — not as one man may build for 
another, but as no man can build for himself. For our 
comfort, education, training, he has put into form for 
us all the otherwise hidden thoughts and feelings of our 
heart. Even when he speaks of the hidden things of 
the Spirit of God, he uses the forms or pictures ot 
Nature. The world is, as it were, the human, unseen 
world turned inside out that we may see it. On the 
W'alls of the house that he has built for us, God has hung 
up the pictures — ever living, ever changing pictures— of 
all that passes in our souls. Form and colour and 
motion are there, — ever modelling, ever renewing, never 
wearying. Without this living portraiture from within, 
we should have no word to utter that should represent 
a single act of the inner world. Metaphysics could have 
no existence, not to speak of poetry, not to speak of 
the commonest language of affection. But all is done 
in such spiritual suggestion, portrait and definition are 
so avoided, the whole is in such fluent evanescence, that 
the producing mind is only aided, never overwhelmed. 
It never amounts to representation. It affords but the 
material which the thinking, feeling soul can use, in- 
terpret, and apply for its own purposes of speech. It is, 
as it were, the forms of thought cast into a lovely chaos 
by the inferior laws of matter, thence to be withdrawn 


484 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


by what we call the creative genius that God has given 
to men, and moulded, and modelled, and arranged, and 
built up to its own shapes and its own purposes.” 

“ Then I presume you would say that no mere tran- 
script, if I may use the word, of nature, is the worthy 
work of an artist.” 

“ It is an impossibility to make a mere transcript. 
No man can help seeing nature as he is himself. F01 * 
she has all in her. But if he sees no meaning in especial 
that he wants to give, his portrait of her will represent 
only her dead face, not her living, impassioned coun 
tenance.” 

“ Then artists ought to interpret nature ?” 

“ Indubitably. But that will only be to interpret 
themselves — something of humanity that is theirs, whether 
they have discovered it already or not. If to this they 
can add some teaching for humanity, then indeed they 
may claim to belong to the higher order of art, however 
imperfect they may be in their powers of representing — 
however lowly, therefore, their position may be in that 
order.' 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

1HF. SOKE £K)T. 

fi wcdi Ob taikiog for some time. Indeed wi» 

I talker* so long that the dinner-hour was ap- 
| proaching, when one of the maids came wiili 
the message that Mr Stokes had called again, 
wishing to see me. I could not help smiling inwardly 
at the news. I went down at once, and found him 
smiling too. 

“ My wife do send me for you this time, sir,” he said 
“ Between you and me, I cannot help thinking she have 
something on her mind she wants to tell you, sir.” 

“Why shouldn’t she tell you, Mr Stokes? That 
would be most natural. And then if you wanted any 
help about it, why, of course here I am.” 

“She don’t think well enough of my judgment for 
that, sir. And I daresay she be quite right. She abvay» 
do make me give in before she have done talking. But 
she have been a right good wife to me, sir," 



486 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ Perhaps she would have been a better if you hadn’t 
given in quite so much. It is very wrong to give in 
when you think you are right.” 

“ But I never be sure of it when she talk to me 
awhile.” 

“ Ah, then, I have nothing to say, except that you 
ought to have been surer — sometimes ; I don’t say 
always .” 

“ But she do want you very bad now, sir. I don’t 
think she ’ll behave to you as she did before. Do come, 
sir.” 

“ Of course I will — instantly.” 

I returned to the study, and asked Percivale if he 
would like to go with me. He looked, I thought, as 
if he would rather not. I saw that it was hardly kind 
to ask him. 

“ Well, perhaps it is better not,” I said, “ for I do not 
know how long I may have to be with the poor woman. 
You had better wait here and take my place at the 
dinner-table. I promise not to depose you if I should 
return before the meal is over.” 

He thanked me very heartily. I showed him into the 
drawing-room, told my wife where I was going, and not 
to wait dinner for me — I would take my chance — and 
joined Mr Stokes. 

•' You have no idea, then,” I said, after we had 
gone about half-way, “ what makes your wife so un« 
easy i ” 

“No, I haven’t,” he answered. “Except it be,” he 
resumed “ that she was too hard, as I thought, upon 


THE SORE SPOT. 


487 


our Maty, when she wanted to marry beneath her, as 
wife thought.” 

“How beneath her? Who was it she wanted to 
marry ? ” 

“She did marry him, sir. She has a bit of her 
mother’s temper, you see, and she would take her own 
way.” 

“Ah ! there’s a lesson to mothers, is it not ? If they 
want to have their own way, they mustn’t give their own 
temper to their daughters.” 

“ But how are they to help it, sir?” 

“ Ah 1 how indeed ? But what is your daughter’s hus« 
band?” 

“ A labourer, sir. He works on a farm out by Carp- 
stone.” 

“ But you have worked on Mr Barton’s farm for many 
years, if I don’t mistake.” 

“ I have, sir. But I am a sort of a foreman now, you 
see.” 

“ But you weren’t so always, and your son-in-law, 
whether he work his way up or not, is, I presume, much 
where you were when you married Mrs Stokes.” 

“True as you say, sir. And it’s not me that hcs 
anything to say about it. I never gave the man a nay. 
But you see my wife, she always do be wanting to get 
her head up in the world, and since she took to the 
shop-keeping” 

“The shop-keeping !” I said, with some surprise. “I 
didn’t know that.” 

“ Well, you see, sir, it ’s only for a quarter, or so, of, 


488 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


the year. You know it 's a favourite walk for the folks 
as comes here for the bathing — past our house, to see 
the great cave down below. And my wife she got a bit 
of a sign put up, and put a few ginger-beer bottles in 
the window, and ” 

“ A bad place for the ginger-beer,” I said. 

“ They were only empty ones with corks and strings, 
you know, sir. My wife she know better than put the 
ginger-beer its own self in the sun. But I do think she 
carry her head higher after that, and a farm- labourer, 
At they call them, was none good enough for her 
daughter.” 

“ And hasn't she been kind to her since she married, 
then?” 

“ She *s never done her no harm, sir.” 

But she hasn’t gone to see her very often, or asked 
her t& come and see you very often, I suppose.” 

“ There ’s ne'er a one o’ them crossed the door of the 
other,” he answered, with some evident feeling, of his 
own in the matter. 

“ Ah ! But you don't approve of that yourself, 
Stokes?” 

“ Approve of it ? No, sir. I be a farm-labourer once 
myself. And so I do want to see my daughter now and 
then. But she take after her mother, she do. I don't 
know which of the two it is as does it, but there ’s no 
coming and going between Carpstone and this.” 

We were approaching the house. I told Stokes he 
had better let her know I was there ; for that, if she 
had changed her mind, it was not too late for me to go 


THE SORE SPOT. 


489 


home again without disturbing her. He came back say- 
ing she was still very anxious to see me. 

“ Well, Mrs Stokes, how do you feel to-day V’ I asked, 
by way of opening the conversation. “1 don’t think 
you look much worse.” 

“ I be much worse, sir. You don’t know what I 
suffer, or you wouldn’t make so little of it. I be very 
bad.” 

“ I know you are very ill, but I hope you are not too 
ill to tell me why you are so anxious to see me. You 
have got something to tell me, I suppose.” 

With pale and death-like countenance, she appeared 
to be fighting more with herself than with the disease 
which yet had nearly overcome her. The drops stood 
upon her forehead, and she did not speak. Wishing to 
help her, if I might, I said— 

“ Was it about your daughter you wanted to speak to 
me?” 

“ No,” she muttered. “ I have nothing to say about 
my daughter. She was my own. I could do as I pleased 
with her.” 

I thought with myself, we must have a word about 
that by and by, but meantime she must relieve her heart 
of the one thing whose pressure she feels. 

“ Then,” I said, “ you want to tell me about some- 
thing that was not your own?” 

u Who said I ever took what was not my own ?” she 
returned fiercely. “ Did Stokes dare to say I took any- 
thing that wasn’t my own?” 

“ No one has said anything of the sort Only I can 


490 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


not help thinking, from your own words and from youf 
own behaviour, that that must be the cause of your 
misery.” 

“ It is very hard that the parson should think such 
things,” she muttered again. 

“ My poor woman,” I said, “ you sent for me because 
you had something to confess to me. I want to help 
you, if I can. But you are too proud to confess it yet, 
I see. There is no use in my staying here. It only 
does you harm. So I will bid you good morning. It 
you cannot confess to me, confess to God.” 

“ God knows it, I suppose, without that” 

“ Yes. But that does not make it less necessary for 
you to confess it How is he to forgive you, if you 
won't allow that you have done wrong?” 

“ It be not so easy that as you think. How would you 
like to say you had took something that wasn’t your own ?” 

“ Well, I shouldn’t like it, certainly ; but if I had it 
to do, I think I should make haste and do it, and so get 
rid of it.” 

“ But that’s the worst of it ; I can’t get rid of it” 

“ But,” I said, laying my hand on hers, and trying to 
speak as kindly as I could, although her whole behaviour 
would have been exceedingly repulsive but for her evi- 
dently great suffering, “ you have now all but confessed 
taking something that did not belong to you. Why 
don’t you summon courage and tell me all about it 9 
I want to help you out of the trouble as easily as evei 
I can ; but I can’t if you don’t tell me what you’ve got 
that isn’t yours.” 


THE SORE SPOT. 


49« 


* I haven’t got anything,” she muttered. 

“ You had something then, whatever may have becom# 
of it now.” 

She was again silent. 

“ What dul you do with it ? n 

u Nothing.” 

I rose and took up my hat She stretched out her 
hand, as if to lay hold of me, with a cry. 

“ Stop, stop. I ’ll tell you all about it. I lost it again. 
That ’s the worst of it. I got no good of it.” 

“ What was it ? ” 

“ A sovereign,” she said, with a groan. “ And now 
I ’m a thief, I suppose.” 

“No more a thief than you were before. Rather less, 
I hope. But do you think it would have been any better 
for you if you hadn’t lost it, and had got some good of 
it, as you say?” 

She was silent yet again. 

“ If you hadn’t lost it you would most likely have been 
a great deal worse for it than you are — a more wicked 
woman altogether.” 

4i I ’m not a wicked woman.” 

“ It is wicked to steal, is it not ? * 

<l I didn’t steal it.” 

u Ho v did you come by it, then!* 

“ I found it.” 

u Did you try to find out the owner t" 

* No. I knew whose it was.” 

« Then it was very wicked not to return it And, I 
gay again, that if you had not lost the sovereign ycu 


492 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


would have been most likely a more wicked woman than 
you are.” 

“ It was very hard to lose it. I could have given it 
back. And then I wouldn’t have lost my character as I 
have done this day.” 

u Yes, you could ; but I doubt if you would.* 

* I would.” 

u Now, if you had it, you are sure you would give it 
back?* 

u Yes, that I would,” she said, looking me so full in 
the face that I was sure she meant it. 

“ How would you give it back ? Would you get your 
husband to take it 1 ” 

“ No ! I wouldn’t trust him.” 

“With the story you mean? You do not wish to 
Imply that he would not restore it.” 

“ I don’t mean that. He would do what I told him.” 

u How would you return it, then ?” 

u I should make a parcel of it, and send it.” 

u Without saying anything about it ?” 

u Yes. Where ’s the good ? The man would have his 
own.” 

“ No, he would not. He has a right to your confes- 
sion, for you have wronged him. That would never do.” 

“ You are too hard upon me,” she said, beginning to 
Weep angrily. 

“ Do you want to get the weight of this sin off your 
mind?” I said. 

“ Of course Ida I am going to die. Oh dear l oh 
dear !” 


THE SORE SPOT. 


493 


“ Then that is just what I want to help you in. You 
must confess, or the weight of it will stick there.” 

“ But, if I confess, I shall be expected to pay it 
back.” 

“ Of course. That is only reasonable.” 

“ But I haven’t got it, I tell you. I have lost it** 

“ Have you not a sovereign in your possession ? " 

“ No, not one.” 

u Can’t you ask your husband to let you have one ? ” 

“ There ! I knew it was no use. I knew you would 
only make matters worse. I do wish I had never seen 
that wicked money.” 

“ You ought not to abuse the money. It was not 
wicked. You ought to wish that you had returned it 
But that is no use. The thing is to return it now. 
Has your husband got a sovereign ? ” 

“No. He may ha’ got one since I be laid up. But 
I never can tell him about it. And I should be main 
sorry to spend one of his hard earning in that way, poor 
man.” 

“ Well, I ’ll tell him. And we *11 manage it somehow.” 

1 thought for a few moments she would break out in 
opposition, but she hid her face with the sheet instead, 
and burst into a great weeping. 

I took this as a permission to do as I had said, and 
went to the room -door and called her husband. He 
came, looking scared. His wife did not look up, but 
lay weeping. I hoped much for her and him too from 
this humiliation before him, for I had little doubt shs 
needed it. 


494 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“Your wife, poor woman,” I said, “is in great distress 
because — I do not know when or how — she picked up 
a sovereign that did not belong to her, and instead of 
returning, put it away somewhere, and lost it. This is 
what is making her so miserable.” 

“ Deary me I ” said Stokes, in the tone with which 
he would have spoken to a sick child ; and going up to 
his wife he sought to draw down the sheet from her face, 
apparently that he might kiss her, but she kept tight 
hold of it, and he could not. “ Deary me ! ” he went 
on. “ We *11 soon put that all to rights. When was it, 
Jane, that you found it ? ” 

“ When we wanted so to have a pig of our own ; and 
I thought I could soon return it,” she sobbed from under 
the sheet. 

“ Deary me ! Ten years ago ! Where did you find 
it, old woman ? ” 

“ I saw Squire Tresham drop it, as he paid me for 
some ginger-beer he got for some ladies that was with 
him. I do believe I should ha' given it back at the 
time, but he made faces at the ginger-beer, and said it 
was very nasty, and I thought, well, I would punish him 
for it” 

“ You see it was your temper that made a thief of 
you, then,” I said. 

“ My old man won’t be so hard on me as you, sir. I 
wish I had told him first.” 

“ I would wish that, too,” I said, “ were it not that I 
am afraid you might have persuaded him to be silent 
about it, and so have made him miserable and wicfc ed 


THE SORE SPOT. 


495 


too. But now, Stokes, what is to be done! This 
money must be paid. Have you got it V* 

The poor man looked blank. 

“She will never be at ease till this money is paid,” I 
Insisted. 

“ Well, sir, I ’ain't got it ; but I ’ll borrow it of some 
one. I ’ll go to master, and ask him.” 

“No, my good fellow, that won’t do. Your master 
would want to know what you were going to do with it, 
perhaps ; and we mustn’t let more people know about it 
than just ourselves and Squire Tresham. There is no 
occasion for that. I ’ll tell you what. I ’ll give you the 
money, and you must take it— or, if you like, I will 
take it to the squire, and tell him all about it Do you 
authorize me to do this, Mrs Stokes ? ” 

“ Please, sir. It ’s very kind of you. I will work hard 
to pay you again, if it please God to spare me. I am 
very sorry I was so cross-tempered to you, sir ; but I 
couldn’t bear the disgrace of it.” 

She said all this from under the bed-clothes. 

“ Well, I ’ll go,” I said ; “ and as soon as I ’ve had my 
dinner, I ’ll get a horse and ride over to Squire Tresham’s. 
I ’ll come back to-night and tell you about it. And now 
I hope you will be able to thank God for forgiving you 
this sin. But you must not hide and cover it up, but 
confess it clean out to him, you know.” 

She made me no answer, but went on sobbing. 

I hastened home, and, as I entered, sent Walter to 
ask the loan of a horse which a gentleman, a neighbour, 
had placed at my disposal. 


49* 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


When I went into the dining-room, I found that 
they had not sat down to dinner. I expostulated ; it 
was against the rule of the house, when my return was 
uncertain. 

“ But, my love,” said my wife, “ why should you not 
let us please ourselves sometimes 1 Dinner is so much 
nicer when you are with us.” 

“ I am very glad you think so,” I answered. “ But 
there are the children : it is not good for growing crea- 
tures to be kept waiting for their meals.” 

“ You see there are no children ; they have had their 
dinner.” 

“ Always in the right, wifie ; but there ’s Mr Perd- 
vale.” 

“ I never dine till seven o’clock — to save daylignt,” he 
said. 

“ Then I am beaten on all points. Let us dine.” 

During dinner I could scarcely help observing how 
Percivale’s eyes followed Wynnie, or, rather, every now 
and then settled down upon her face. That she was 
aware, almost conscious of this, I could not doubt. One 
glance at her satisfied me of that. But certain words 
of the apostle kept coming again and again into 
my mind, for they were winged words those, and even 
when they did not enter they fluttered their wings at my 
window : “ Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” And 
I kept reminding myself that I must heave the load of 
sin off me, as I had been urging poor Mrs Stokes to do; 
for God was ever seeking to lift it, only he could not 
without my help, for that would be to do me more harm 


THE SORE SPOT. 


497 


than good, by taking the one thing in which I was like 
him away from me — my action. Therefore I must have 
faith in him, and not be afraid ; for, surely, all fear is sin, 
Rnd one of the most oppressive sins from which the Lord 
came to save us. 

Before dinner was over the horse was at the door. I 
mounted, and set out for Squire Tresham’s. 

I found him a rough but kind-hearted, elderly man. 
When I told him the story of the poor woman’s misery, 
he was quite concerned at her suffering. When I pro- 
duced the sovereign, he would not receive it at first, but 
requested me to take it back to her, and say she must 
keep it by way of an apology for his rudeness about her 
ginger-beer ; for I took care to tell him the whole story, 
thinking it might be a lesson to him too. But I begged 
him to take it, for it would, I thought, not only relieve hei 
mind more thoroughly, but help to keep her from com- 
ing to think lightly of the affair afterwards. Of course I 
could not tell him that I had advanced the money, for 
that would have quite prevented him from receiving it 
I then got on my horse again, and rode straight to the 
cottage. 

“ Well, Mrs Stokes/’ I said, “ it ’s all over now. 
That’s one good thing done. How do you feel yourself 
now?” 

“I feel better now, sir. I hope God will forgive me.** 

u Goa does forgive you. But there are more things • 
you need forgiveness for. It is not enough to get rid of 
one sin. We must get rid of all our sins, you know. 
They ’re not nice things, are they, to keep in our hearts f 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


498 


It is just like shutting up nasty corrupting things, dead 
carcasses, under lock and key, in our most secret drawers, 
as if they were precious jewels.” 

“ I wish I could be good, like some people, but I 
wasn’t made so. There ’s my husband now. 1 do 
believe he never do anything wrong in his life. But 
then, you see, he would let a child take him in.” 

“And far better too. Infinite^ better to be taken 
in. Indeed there is no harm in being taken in; but 
there is awful harm in taking in.” 

She did not reply, and I went on — 

“ I think you would feel a good deal better yet, if 
you would send for your daughter and her husband 
now, and make it up with them, especially seeing you 
are so ill.” 

“ I will, sir. I will directly. I ’m tired of having my 
own way. But I was made so.” 

“You weren’t made to continue so, at all events. 
God gives us the necessary strength to resist what is bad 
in us. He is making at you now ; only you must give 
in, else he cannot get on with the making of you. I 
think very likely he made you ill now, just that you 
might bethink yourself, and feel that you had done 
wrong.” 

“ I have been feeling that for many a year. 

“ That made it the more needful to make you ill ; for 
• you had been feeling your duty, and yet not doing it ; 
and that was worst of all. You know Jesus came to lift 
the weight of our sins, our very sins themselves, off our 
hearts* by forgiving them and helping us to cast them 


THE SORE SPOT. 


49$ 


away from us. Everything that makes you uncomfort- 
able must have sin in it somewhere, and he came to 
«ave you from it. Send for your daughter and her hus*- 
band, and, when you have done that, you will think oj 
something else to set right that’s wrong.” 

* But there would be no end to that way of it, sir.” 

u Certainly not, till everything was put right.” 

“ But a body might have nothing else to do, that 
way.” 

“ Well, that's the very first thing that has to be done. 
It is our business in this world. We were not sent here 
to have our own way and try to enjoy ourselves.” 

“ That is hard upon a poor woman that has to work 
for her bread.” 

“To work for your bread is not to take your own 
way, for it is God’s way. But you have wanted many 
things your own way. Now, if you would just take his 
way, you would find that he would take care you should 
enjoy your life.” 

“ I ’m sure I haven’t had much enjoyment in mine.” 

u That was just because you would not trust him with 
his own business, but must take it into your hands. If 
you will but do his will, he will take care that you have 
a life to be very glad of and very thankful for. And the 
longer you live, the more blessed you will find it. But I 
must leave you now, for I have talked to you long enough. 
You must try and get a sleep. I will come and see you 
Hfcjain to-morrow, if you like.” 

* Please do, sir. I shall be very grateful.” 

I rode home I thought, if the lifting of one sin off 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


5 *> 


the human heart was like a resurrection, what would it 
be when every sin was lifted from every heart ! Every 
sin, then, discovered in one’s own soul must be a pledge 
of renewed bliss in its removing. And when the thought 
came again of what St Paul had said somewhere — “ what- 
soever is net of faith is sin ” — I thought what a weight 
of sin had to be lifted from the earth, and how blessed 
it might be. But what could I do for it? I could just 
begin with myself, and pray God for that inward light 
which is his spirit, that so I might see him in everything 
and rejoice in everything as his gift, and then all things 
would be holy, for whatsoever is of faith must be the 
opposite of sin ; and that was my part towards heaving 
tae weight of sin, which, like myriads of gravestones 
was pressing the life out of us men, off the whole world. 
Faith in God is life and righteousness — the faith that 
trusts so that it will obey — none other. Lord, lift the 
people thou hast made into holy obedience and thanks- 
giving, that they may be glad in this thy world. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 


THE GATHERING STORM. 

weather cleared up again the next day, and 
r a fortnight it was lovely. In this region 
e saw less of the sadness of the dying year 
an in our own parish, for there being so 
few trees in the vicinity of the ocean, the autumn had 
nowhere to hang out her mourning flags. But there, 
indeed, so mild is the air, and so equable the temperature, 
all the winter through, compared with the inland counties, 
that the bitterness of the season is almost unknown. 
This, however, is no guarantee against furious storms of 
wind and rain. 

Not long after the occurrence last recorded, Turner 
paid us another visit. I confess I was a little surprised 
at his being able to get away so soon again ; for of all 
men a country surgeon can least easily find time for a 
holiday ; but he had managed it, and I had no doubt, 



502 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


from what I knew of him, had made thorough provision 
for his cure in his absence. 

He brought us good news from home. Everything 
was going on well. Weir was working as hard as usual ; 
and everybody agreed that I could not have got a man 
to take my place better 

He said he found Connie much improved ; and, from 
my own observations, I was sure he was right. She was 
now able to turn a good way from one side to the other, 
and finding her health so steady besides, Turner en- 
couraged her in making gentle and frequent use of her 
strength, impressing it upon her, however, that every- 
thing depended on avoiding everything like a jerk or 
twist of any sort. I was with them when he said this 
She looked up at him with a happy smile. 

“ I will do all I can, Mr Turner,” she said, “ to get 
out of people’s way as soon as possible.” 

Perhaps she saw something in our faces that mack? 
her add — 

“ I know you don't mind the bother I am ; but I do. 
I want to help, and not be helped — more than other 
people — as soon as possible. I will therefore be as 
gentle as mamma and as brave as papa, and see if we 
don’t get well, Mr Turner. I mean to have a ride on old 
Spry next summer. — I do,” she added, nodding her 
pretty head up from the pillow, when she saw the glance 
the doctor and I exchanged. “ Look here,” she went 
on, poking the eider-down quilt up with her foot 

“ Magnificent,” said Turner ; “ but mind, you must do 
nothing out of bravado. That won’t do at all.” 


THE GATHERING STORM. 


503 


“ I have done,” said Connie, putting on a face of 
mock submission. 

That day we carried her out for a few minutes, but 
hardly laid her down, for we were afraid of the damp 
from the earth. A few feet nearer or farther from the 
soil will make a difference. It was the last time for 
many weeks. Any one interested in my Connie need 
not be alarmed ; it was only because of the weather, not 
because of her health. 

One day I was walking home from a visit I had been 
paying to Mrs Stokes. She was much better, in a fair 
way to recover indeed, and her mental health was im- 
proved as well. Her manner to me was certainly very 
different, and the tone of her voice, when she spoke to 
her husband especially, was changed : a certain rough- 
ness in it was much modified, and I had good hopes that 
she had begun to climb up instead of sliding down the 
hill of difficulty, as she had been doing hitherto. 

It was a cold and gusty afternoon. The sky eastward 
and overhead was tolerably clear when I set out from 
home ; but when I left the cottage to return, I could 
see that some change was at hand. Shaggy vapours 
of light gray were blowing rapidly across the sky from 
the west. A wind was blowing fiercely up there, although 
the gusts down below came from the east The clouds 
it swept along with it were formless, with loose fringes— 
disreputable, troubled, hasty clouds they were, looking 
like mischief. They reminded me of Shelley’s “ Ode to 
the West Wind,” in which he compares the “loose 
clouds ” to hair, and calls them “ the locks of the ao- 


5«4 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


proaching storm.” Away to the west, a great thick cur- 
tain of fog, of a luminous yellow, covered all the sea- 
horizon, extending north and south as far as the eye 
could reach. It looked ominous. A surly secret seemed 
to lie in its bosom. Now and then I could discern 
the dim ghost of a vessel through it, as tacking for north 
or south it came near enough to the edge of the fog to 
show itself for a few moments, ere it retreated again into 
its bosom. There was exhaustion, it seemed to me, in 
the air, notwithstanding the coolness of the wind, and I 
was glad when I found myself comfortably seated by the 
drawing-room fire and saw Wynnie bestirring herself to 
make the tea. 

“ It looks stormy, I think, Wynnie,” I said. 

Her eye lightened, as she looked out to sea from the 
window. 

M You seem to like the idea of it,” I added. 

“ You told me I was like you, papa ; and you look as 
if you liked the idea of it too.” 

“Per Si % certainly, a storm is pleasant to me. I 
should not like a world without storms any more than 
I should like that Frenchman’s idea of the perfection 
of the earth, when all was to be smooth as a trim shaven 
lawn, rocks and mountains banished, and the sea break- 
ing on the shore only in wavelets of ginger-beer or 
lemonade, I forget which. But the older you grow, the 
more sides of a thing will present themselves to your 
contemplation. The storm may be grand and exciting 
in itself, but you cannot help thinking of the people that 
are m it Think for a moment of the multitude of 


THE GATHERING STORM 


505 


vessels, great and small, which are gathered within the 
skirts of that angry vapour out there. I fear the toils of 
the storm are around them. Look at the barometer in 
the hall, my dear, and tell me what it sajrs.” 

She went and returned. 

“ It was not very low, papa — only at rain ; but the 
moment I touched it, the hand dropped an inch.” 

“ Yes, I thought so. All things look stormy. It may 
not be very bad here, however.” 

“ That doesn’t make much difference though, does it 
papal” 

“ No further than that being creatures in time and 
space, we must think of things from our own stand- 
point.” 

“ But I remember very well how, when we were 
children, you would not let nurse teach us Dr Watts’s 
hymns for children, because you said they tended to 
encourage selfishness.” 

“ Yes ; I remember it very well. Some of them make 
the contrast between the misery of others and our own 
comforts so immediately the apparent — mind, I only say 
apparent — ground of thankfulness, that they are not fit 
for teaching. I do think that if you could put Dr Watts 
to the question, he would abjure any such intention, 
saying that he only meant to heighten the sense of our 
obligation. But it does tend to selfishness, and. what is 
worse, self-righteousness, and is very dangerous tnere- 
fore. What right have I to thank God that I am not as 
other men are in anything! I have to thank God for 
the good things he has given to me - } but how dare I 


5°6 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


suppose that he is not doing the same for other people 
in proportion to their capacity ? I don’t like to appear 
to condemn Dr Watts’s hymns. Certainly he has written 
the very worst hymns I know ; but he has likewise 
written the best — for public worship, I mean/’ 

“ Well, but. papa, I have heard you say that any 
simple feeling that comes of itself cannot be wrong in 
itself. If I feel a delight in the idea of a storm, I can- 
not help it coming.” 

“ I never said you could, my dear. I only said that 
as we get older, other things we did not feel at first 
come to show themselves more to us and impress us 
more.” 

Thus my child and I went on, like two pendulums 
crossing each other in their swing, trying to reach the 
same dead beat of mutual intelligence. 

“ But,” said Wynnie, “ you say everybody is in God’s 
hands as well as we.” 

“Yes, surely, my dear; as much out in yon stormy 
haze as here beside the fire.” 

“Then we ought not to be miserable about them, 
even if there comes a storm, ought we ? ” 

“ No, surely. And, besides, I think if we could help 
any of them, the very persons that enjoyed the storm 
the most would be the busiest to rescue them from it. 
At least, I fancy so. But isn’t the tea ready?” 

“ Yes, papa. I ’ll just go and tell mamma.” 

When she returned with her mother, and the children 
had joined us, Wynnie resumed the talk. 

“ I know what I ’m going to say is absurd, papa, and 


THK GATHERING STORM. 


507 


yet I don’t see my way out of it — logically, I suppose 
you would call it. What is the use of taking any trouble 
about them if they are in God’s hands? Why should 
we try to take them out of God’s hands ?” 

“ Ah, Wynnie ! at least you do not seek to hide youi 
bad logic, or whatever you call it Take them out of 
God’s hands ! If you could do that, it would be perdition 
indeed. God’s hands is the only safe place in the uni- 
verse. And the universe is in his hands. Are we not 
in God’s hands on the shore because we say they are 
in his hands who go down to the sea in ships? If we 
draw them on shore, surely they are not out of God’s 
hands.” 

“I see. I see. But God could save them without 
us.” 

“ Yes ; but what would become of us then ? God is 
so good to us that we must work our little salvation in 
the earth with him. Just as a father lets his little child 
help him a little, that the child may learn to be and to 
do, so God puts it in our hearts to save this life to our 
fellows, because we would instinctively save it to our 
selves if we could. He requires us to do our best” 

“But God may not mean to save them.” 

“ He may mean them to be drowned — we do not 
know. But we know that we must try our little salvation, 
for it will never interfere with God’s great and good and 
perfect will. Ours will be foiled if he sees that best.” 

“But people always say, when any one escapes un- 
hurt from an accident, 4 by the mercy of God/ They 
don’t say it is by the mercy of God when he is drowned.* 


5°8 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ But people cannot be expected, ought not to say what 
they do not feel. Their own first sensation of deliverance 
from impending death would break out in a ‘ thank God,* 
and therefore they say it is God's mercy when another 
is saved. If they go farther, and refuse to consider it 
God’s mercy when a man is drowned, that is just the 
sin of the world— the want of faith. But the man who 
creeps out of the drowning, choking billows into the 
glory of the new heavens and the new earth— do you 
think his thanksgiving for the mercy of God which has 
delivered him is less than that of the man who creeps, 
exhausted and worn, out of the waves on to the dreary, 
surf-beaten shore? In nothing do we show less faith 
than the way in which we think and speak about death, 
‘O Death! where is thy sting? O Grave ! where is thy 
victory V says the apostle. ‘ Here, here, here,’ cry the 
Christian people, ‘ everywhere. It is an awful sting, a 
fearful victory. But God keeps it away from us many 
a time when we ask him — to let it pierce us to the heart, 
at last, to be sure ; but that can’t be helped.' I mean 
this is how they feel in their hearts who do not believe 
that God is as merciful when he sends death as when 
he sends life; who, Christian people as they are, yet 
look upon death as an evil thing which cannot be 
avoided, and would, if they might live always, be con- 
tent to live always. Death or Life — each is God’s; for 
he is not the God of the dead, but of the living : there 
are no dead, for all live to him." 

“ But don’t you think we naturally shrink from death, 
Harry?’’ said my wife. 


THE GATHERING STORM. 


509 


" There can be no doubt about that, my dear.” 

u Then, if it be natural, God must have meant that it 
•hould be so.” 

“ Doubtless, to begin with ; but not to continue orerd 
with A child’s sole desire is for food — the very best 
possible to begin with. But how would it be if the child 
should reach, say, two years of age, and refuse to share 
this same food with his little brother 1 Or what comes 
of the man who never so far rises above the desire for 
food, that nothing could make him forget his dinner-hour 1 
Just so the life of Christians should be strong enough to 
overcome the fear of death. We ought to love and 
believe him so much, that when he says we shall not 
die, we should at least believe that death must be some- 
thing very different from what it looks to us to be — so 
different, that what we mean by the word does not apply 
to the reality at all; and so Jesus cannot use the word, 
because it would seem to us that he meant what we 
mean by it, which he, seeing it all round, cannot mean.” 

“ That does seem quite reasonable,” said Ethelvvyn. 

Turner had taken no part in the conversation. He 
too had just come in from a walk over the hills. He 
was now standing looking out at the sea. 

“ She looks uneasy ? Does she not 1 ” I said. 

“ You mean the Atlantic 1 ” he returned, looking 
round. “Yes, I think so. I am glad she is not a 
patient of mine. I fear she is going to be very feverish, 
probably delirious before morning. She won’t sleep 
much, and will talk rather loud when the tide cornea 
m.* 


5io 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


u Disease has often an ebb and flow like the tide, has 
it not?” 

H Often. Some diseases are like a plant that has 
its time to grow and blossom, then dies ; others, as 
you say, ebb and flow again and again before they 
vanish.” 

“ It seems to me, however, that the ebb and flow does 
not belong to the disease, but to Nature, which works 
through the disease. It seems to me that my life has 
its tides, just like the ocean, only a little more regularly. 
It is high water with me always in the morning and 
the evening : in the afternoon life is at its lowest ; and I 
believe it is lowest again while we sleep, and hence it 
comes that to work the brain at night has such an inju- 
rious effect on the system. But this is perhaps all a 
fancy.” 

“There may be some truth in it But I was just 
thinking when you spoke to me what a happy thing it 
is that the tide does not vary by an even six hours, but 
has the odd minutes, whence we see endless changes in 
the relation of the water to the times of the day. And 
then the spring tides and the neap tides ! What a pro- 
vision there is in the world for change ! ” 

“Yes. Change is one of the forms that infinitude 
takes for the use of us human immortals. But come and 
have some tea, Turner. You will not care to go out 
again. What shall we do this evening? Shall we go to 
Connie’s room and have some Shakspere ? ” 

“ I could wish nothing better. What play shall we 
have ! ” 


THE GATHERING STORM. 


5*t 


“Let us have the Midsummer Night’s Dream,” said 
Ethelwyn. 

“ You like to go by contraries, apparently, Ethel. But 
you’re quite right. It is in the winter of the year that 
art must give us its summer. I suspect that most of the 
poetry about spring and summer is written in the winter. 
It is generally when we do not possess that we lay full 
value upon what we lack.” 

“ There is one reason,” said Wynnie, with a roguish 
look, “ why I like that play.” 

“I should think there might be more than one, 
Wynnie.” 

“But one reason is enough for a woman at once~- 
isn’t it, papa ? ” 

“ I ’m not sure of that. But what is your reason?” 

“ That the fairies are not allowed to play any trick* 
with the women. They are true throughout.” 

“ I might choose to say that was because they were 
not tried.” 

“ And I might venture to answer that Shakspere, 
being true to nature always, as you say, papa, knew 
very well how absurd it would be to represent a woman’* 
feelings as under the influence of the juice of a paltry 
flower.” 

“ Capital, Wynnie ! ” said her mother ; and Turner and 
I chimed in with our approbation. 

“Shall I tell you what I like best in the play?” said 
Turner. “It is the common sense of Theseus in ac- 
counting for all the bewilderments of the night.” 

“ But,” said Ethelwyn, “ he was wrong after alL What il 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


51* 


the use of common sense if it leads you wrong T The 
common sense of Theseus simply amounted to this, that 
he would only believe his own eyes.” 

“ I think Mrs Walton is right, Turner,” I said. “For my 
part, I have more admired the open-mindedness of Hip- 
polyta, who would yield more weight to the consistency 
of the various testimony than could be altogether coun- 
terbalanced by the negation of her own experience. Now 
I will tell you what I most admire in the play : it is the 
reconciling power of the poet. He brings together such 
marvellous contrasts, without a single shock or jar to youi 
feeling of the artistic harmony of the conjunction. Think 
for a moment — the ordinary common-place courtiers; 
the lovers, men and women in the condition of all con- 
ditions in which fairy powers might get a hold of them ; 
the quarreling king and queen of Fairyland, with their 
courtiers, Blossom, Cobweb, and the rest, and the court- 
jester, Puck; the ignorant, clownish artisans, rehearsing 
their play, — fairies and clowns, lovers and courtiers, are 
all mingled in one exquisite harmony, clothed with a 
night of early summer, rounded in by the wedding oJ 
the king and queen. But I have talked enough about 
it. Let us get our books.” 

As we sat in Connie's room, delighting ourselves with 
the reflex of the poet’s fancy, the sound of the rising tide 
kept mingling with the fairy-talk and the foolish rehearsal 
“ Musk roses,” said Titania ; and the first of the blast, 
going round by south to west, rattled the window. 

1 Good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow,” said Bottom ; 
and the roar of the waters was in our ears. u So doth 


THE GATHERING STORM. 


3*3 


the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle Gently entwist," 
said Titania ; and the blast poured the rain in a spout 
against the window. “ Slow in pursuit, but matched in 
mouth like bells,” said Theseus ; and the wind whistled 
shrill through the chinks of the bark house opening from 
the room. We drew the curtains closer, made up the 
fire higher, and read on. It was time for supper ere we 
had done ; and when we left Connie to have hers and 
go to sleep, it was with the hope that, through all the 
rising storm, she would dream of breese-hauated sumuMf 
woods. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 


THE GATHERED STORM 

f 

WOKE in the middle of the night and the 
darkness to hear the wind howling. It was 
wide awake now, and up with intent; it 
seized the house, and shook it furiously, 
and the rain kept pouring, only I could not near it, save 
in the rallentando passages of the wind ; but through ali 
the wind I could hear the roaring of the big waves or. 
the shore. I did not wake my wife, but I got up, put 
on my dressing-gown, and went softly to Connie’s room, 
to see whether she was awake, for I feared if she were, 
she would be frightened. Wynnie always slept in a little 
bed in the same room. I opened the door very gently, 
and peeped in. The fire was burning, for Wynnie was 
an admirable stoker, and could generally keep the fire 
in all night. I crept to the bedside ; there was just light 
enough to see that Connie was fast asleep, and that her 
dreams were not of storms. It was a marvel how well 



THE GATHERED STORM. 


5*5 


the child always slept. But, as I turned to leave the 
room, Wynnie’s voice called me in a whisper. Ap 
proaching her bed, I saw her wide eyes, like the eyes 
of the darkness, for I could scarcely see anything of 
her face. 

“Awake, darling!” I said. 

“Yes, papa. I have been awake a long time; but 
isn’t Connie sleeping delightfully? She does sleep so 
well ! Sleep is surely very good for her.” 

“ It is the best thing for us all, next to God’s spirit, I 
sometimes think, my dear. But are you frightened by 
the storm? Is that what keeps you awake?” 

" I don’t think that is what keeps me awake, but 
sometimes the house shakes so that I do feel a little 
nervous. I don’t know how it is. I never felt afraid of 
anything natural before.” 

“ What our Lord said about not being afraid of any- 
thing that could only hurt the body applies here, and in 
all the terrors of the night, think about him, dear.” 

“ I do try, papa. Don’t you stop. You will get cold. 
It; is a dreadful storm, is it not? Suppose there should 
be people drowning out there now ! ” 

“ There may be, my love. People are dying almost 
every other moment, I suppose, on the face of the earth. 
Drowning is only an easy way of dying. Mind, they are 
all in God’s hands.” 

“ Yes, papa. I will turn round and shut my eyes, and 
fancy that his hand is over them, making them dark with 
his care.” 

44 And it will not be fancy, my darling, if you do. 


3*6 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


You remember those odd but no less devout lines of 
George Herbert? — just after he says, so beautifully, ‘ And 
now with darkness closest weary eyes ; * he adds 

Thus in thy ebony box 
Thou dost inclose us, till the day 
Put our amendment in our way, 

And give new wheels to our disordered clocks. 

He is very fond of boxes, by the way. So go to sleep, 
dear. You are a good clock of God’s making, but 
you want new wheels, according to our beloved brother 
George Herbert. Therefore sleep. Good night." 

This was tiresome talk — was it — in the middle of the 
night, reader? Well, but my child did not think so, I 
know. 

Dark, dank, weeping, the morning dawned. All 
dreary was the earth and sky. The wind was still hunt- 
ing the clouds across the heavens. It lulled a little 
while we sat at breakfast, but soon the storm was up 
again, and the wind raved. I went out. The wind 
caught me as if with invisible human hands, and shook 
me. I fought with it, and made my way into the village. 
The streets were deserted. I peeped up the inn-yard as 
I passed : not a man or horse was to be seen. The little 
shops looked as if nobody had crossed their thresholds 
for a week. Not a door was open. One child came out 
of the baker’s with a big loaf in her apron. The wind 
threatened to blow the hair off her head, if not herself 
first into the canal. I took her by the hand and led her, 
or rather, let her lead me home, while I kept her from 


THE GATHERED STORM. 


517 


being carried away by the wind. Having landed her 
safely inside her mother's door, I went on, climbed the 
heights above the village, and looked abroad over the 
Atlantic. What a waste of aimless tossing to and fro 1 
Grey mist above full of falling rain ; grey, wrathful waters 
underneath, foaming and bursting as billow broke upon 
billow. The tide was ebbing now, but almost every 
other wave swept the breakwater. They burst on the 
rocks at the end of it, and rushed in shattered spouts 
and clouds of spray far into the air over their heads. 
“ Will the time ever come,” I thought, “ when man shall 
be able to store up even this force for his own endsl 
who can tell ? ” The solitary form of a man stood at 
some distance gazing, as I was gazing, out on the ocean. 
I walked towards him, thinking with myself who it could 
be that loved Nature so well that he did not shrink from 
her even in her most uncompanionable moods. I sus- 
pected. and soon found I was right : it was Percivale. 

“ What a clashing of water-drops ! ” I said, thinking 
of a line somewhere in Coleridge’s “ Remorse.” “ They 
are but water-drops, after all, that make this great noise 
upon the rocks ; only there is a great many of them.” 

“Yes,” said Percivale. “ But look out yonder. You 
see a single sail, close-reefed — that is all I can see— 
away in the mist there ? As soon as you think of the 
human struggle with the elements, as soon as you know 
that hearts are in the midst of it, it is a clashing of water- 
drops no more. It is an awful power, with which the 
will and all that it rules have to fight for the mastery, of 
at least for freedom.” 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


518 


“ Surely you are right It is the presence of thought, 
feeling, effort that gives the majesty to everything. It 
is even a dim attribution of human feelings to this tor- 
mented, passionate sea that gives it much of its awe, 
although, as we were saying the other day, it is only a 
picture of the troubled mind But as I have now seen 
how matters are with the elements, and have had a good 
pluvial bath as well, I think I will go home and change 
my clothes.” 

“ I have hardly had enough of it yet,” returned Perci- 
vale. “ I shall have a stroll along the heights here, and 
when the tide has fallen a little way from the foot of the 
cliffs I shall go down on the sands, and watch a while 
there.” 

“ Well, you ’re a younger man than I am ; but I Ve 
seen the day, as Lear says. What an odd tendency we 
old men have to boast of the past : we would be judged 
by the past, not by the present. We always speak of 
the strength that is withered and gone, as if we had some 
claim upon it still. But I ’m not going to talk in this 
storm. I am always talking.” 

“ I will go with you as far as the village, and then I 
will turn and take my way along the downs for a mile or 
two. I don’t mind being wet.” 

“ I didn’t once.” 

“ Don’t you think,” resumed Percivale, “ that in some 
sense the old man — not that I can allow you that dignity 
yet, Mr Walton — has a right to regard the past as his 
own ? ” 

u That would be scanned,” I answered, as we walked 


THE GATHERED STORM. 


5«9 


towards the village. “ Surely the results of the past are 
the man’s own. Any action of the man’s upon which 
the life in him reposes remains his. But suppose a man 
had done a good deed once, and instead of making that 
a foundation upon which to build more good, grew so 
vain of it that he became incapable of doing anything 
more of the same sort, you could not say that the action 
belonged to him still. Therein he has severed his con- 
nection with the past. Again, what has never in any 
deep sense been a man’s own, cannot surely continue tw 
be his afterwards. Thus the things that a man has 
merely possessed once, the very people who most ad- 
mired him for their sakes when he had them, give him 
no credit for after he has lost them. Riches that have 
taken to themselves wings leave with the poor man only 
a surpassing poverty. Strength, likewise, which can so 
little depend on any exercise of the will in man, passes 
from him with the years. It was not his all the time. 
It was but lent him, and had nothing to do with his 
inward force. A bodily feeble man may put forth a 
mighty life-strength in effort, and show nothing to the 
eyes of his neighbour, while the strong man gains endless 
admiration for what he could hardly help. But the 
effort of the one remains, for it was his own ; the strength 
of the other passes from him, for it was never his own. 
So with beauty, which the commonest woman acknow- 
ledges never to have been hers in seeking to restore 
it by deception. So, likewise, in a great measure with 
intellect” 

“But if you take away intellect as well, what do 


$20 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


you leave a man that can in any way be called his 
own ?” 

“ Certainly his intellect is not his own. One thing 
only is his own — to will the truth. This too is as much 
God’s gift as everything else : I ought to say is more 
God’s gift than anything else, for he gives it to be the 
man’s own more than anything else can be. And when 
he wills the truth, he has God himself. Man ca?i possess 
God : all other things follow as necessary results. What 
poor creatures we should have been if God had not made 
u» to do something — to look heavenwards — to lift up 
the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble 
knees ! Something like this was in the mind of the 
prophet Jeremiah when he said, ‘ Thus saith the Lord, 
Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the 
mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man 
glory in his riches; but let him that glorieth glory in 
this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am 
the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and 
righteousness in the earth : for in these tilings I delight, 
saith the Lord/ My own conviction is that a vague 
6ense of a far higher life in ourselves than we yet know 
anything about, is at the root of all our false efforts to 
be able to think something of ourselves. We cannot 
commend ourselves, and therefore we set about priding 
ourselves. We have little or no strength of mind, 
faculty of operation, or worth of will, and therefore we 
talk of our strength of body, worship the riches we have, 
or have not, it is all one, and boast of our paltry inteL 
kctual successes. The man most ambitious of being 


THE GATHERED STORM. 


5*1 


considered a universal genius, must at last confess him- 
self a conceited dabbler, and be ready to part with all 
he knows fcr one glimpse more of that understanding 
of God which the wise men of old held to be essential 
to every man, but which the growing luminaries of the 
present day will not allow to be even possible for any 
man.” 

We had reached the brow of the heights, and here 
we parted. A fierce blast of wind rushed at me, and I 
hastened down the hill. How dreary the streets did 
look ! — how much more dreary than the stormy down ! 
I saw no living creature as I returned but a terribly 
draggled dog, a cat that seemed to have a bad con- 
science, and a lovely little girl-face, which, forgetful of 
its own rights, would flatten the tip of the nose belong- 
ing to it against a window-pane. Every rain pool was a 
mimic sea, and had a mimic storm within its own narrow 
bounds. The water went hurrying down the kennels 
like a long brown snake anxious to get to its hole and 
hide from the tormenting wind, and every now and 
then the rain came in full rout before the conquering 
blast. 

When I got home I peeped in at Connie’s door the 
first thing, and saw that she was raised a little more than 
usual ; that is, the end of the couch against which she 
leaned was at a more acute angle. She was sitting 
staring, rather than gazing, out at the wild tumult which 
she could see over the shoulder of the down on which 
her window immediately looked. Her face was p&lei 
and keener than usual 


$22 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“Why, Connie, who set you up so straight ?” 

“ Mr Turner, papa. I wanted to see out, and he 
raised me himself. He says I am so much better, i 
may have it in the seventh notch as often as I like.” 

“ But you look too tired for it. Hadn’t you better lie 
down again?” 

“ It ’s only the storm, papa.” 

“The more reason you should not see it if it tires 
you so.” 

“ It does not tire me, papa. Only I keep constantly 
wondering what is going to come out of it. It looks so 
as if something must follow.” 

“ You didn’t hear me come into your room last night, 
Connie. The storm was raging then as loud as it is 
now, but you were out of its reach — fast asleep. Now 
it is too much for you. You must lie down.” 

“ Very well, papa.” 

I lowered the support, and when I returned from 
changing my wet garments she was already looking 
much better. 

After dinner I went to my study, but when evening 
began to fall I went out again. I wanted to see how 
our next neighbours, the sexton and his wife, were faring. 
The wind had already increased in violence. It threat- 
ened to blow a hurricane. The tide was again rising, 
and was coming in with great rapidity. The old mill 
snook to the foundation as I passed through it to reach 
the lower part where they lived. When I peeped in 
from the bottom of the stair, I saw no one ; but, hearing 
the steps of some one overhead, I called out 


THE GATHERED STORM. 


5*3 


Agnes’s voice made answer, as she descended aa 
inner stair which led to the bed-rooms above — 

“ Mother ’s gone to church, sir.” 

“ Gone to church ! ” I said, a vague pang darting 
through me as I thought whether I had forgotten any 
service ; but the next moment I recalled what the old 
woman had herself told me of her preference for the 
church during a storm. 

“ Oh yes, Agnes ! I remember,” I said ; “ your mother 
thinks the weather bad enough to take to the church, 
does she 1 How do you come to be here now 1 Where 
is your husband 1 ” 

“ He ’ll be here in an hour or so, sir. He don’t mind 
the wet. You see, we don’t like the old people to be 
left alone when it blows what the sailors call ‘great 
guns.’ ” 

“ And what becomes of his mother then 1 n 

“ There don’t be any sea out there, sir. Leastways," 
she added with a quiet smile, and stopped. 

“You mean, I suppose, Agnes, that there is never 
any perturbation of the elements out there 1 ” 

She laughed; for she understood me well enough. 
The temper of Joe’s mother was proverbial 

“But really, sir,” she said, “she don’t mind the 
weather a bit ; and though we don’t live in the same 
cottage with her, for Joe wouldn’t hear of that, we see 
her far oftener than we see my mother, you know.” 

“ I ’m sure it ’s quite fair, Agnes. Is Joe very sony 
that he married you, now ?” 

She hung her head, and blushed so deeply through all 


5*4 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


her sallow complexion, that I was sorry I had teased her, 
and said so. This brought a reply. 

“ I don’t think he be, sir. I do think he gets better. 
He *s been working very hard the last week or two, and 
he says it agrees with him.” 

“And how are you?” 

“ Quite well, thank you, sir.” 

I had never seen her look half so well. Life was 
evidently a very different thing to both of them now. I 
left her and took my way to the church. 

When I reached the churchyard, there, in the middle 
of the rain and the gathering darkness, was the old man 
busy with the duties of his calling. A certain headstone 
stood right under a drip from the roof of the southern 
transept ; and this drip had caused the mould at the 
foot of the stone, on the side next the wall, to sink, so 
that there was a considerable crack between the stone and 
the soil. The old man had cut some sod from another 
part of the churchyard, and was now standing, with the 
rain pouring on him from the roof, beating this sod 
down in the crack. He was sheltered from the wind by 
the church, but he was as wet as he could be. 1 may 
mention that he never appeared in the least disconcerted 
when I came upon him in the discharge of his functions; 
he was so content with his own feeling in the matter, 
that no difference of opinion could disturb him. 

“This will never do, Coombes,” I said. “You will 
get your death of cold. You must be as full of water as 
a sponge. Old man, there ’s rheumatism in the world !" 

“ It be only my work, sir. But I believe I ha done 


THE GATHERED STORM. 


*35 


now for a night. I think he ’ll be a bit more comfort* 
able now. The very wind could get at him through that 
hole.” 

“ Do go home, then,” I said, 44 and change youi 
clothes. Is your wife in the church 1 ” 

“ She be, sir. This door, sir — this door,” he added, as 
he saw me going round to the usual entrance. “You'll 
find her in there.” 

I lifted the great latch and entered. I could not see 
her at first, for it was much darker inside the church. 
It felt very quiet in there somehow, although the place 
was full of the noise of winds and waters. Mrs Coombes 
was not sitting on the bell-keys, where I looked for her 
first, for the wind blew down the tower in many currents 
and draughts — how it did roar up there — as if the louvres 
had been a windsail to catch the wind and send it down 
to ventilate the church ! — she was sitting at the foot of 
the chancel-rail, with her stocking as usual. 

The sight of her sweet old face, lighted up by a 
moonlike smile as I drew near her, in the middle of 
the ancient dusk filled with sounds, but only sounds, of 
tempest, gave me a sense of one dwelling in the secret 
place of the Most High, such as I shall never forget 
It was no time to say much, however. 

44 How long do you mean to stay here, Mrs Coombes ?” 
I asked. “ Not all night?” 

“ No, not all night, surely, sir But I hadn’t thought 
o’ going yet for a bit/ 

4t Why there ’s Coombes out there, wet to the skin ; 
and I *m afraid he ’ll go on pottering at the churchyard 


526 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


bed-clothes till he gets his bones as full of rheumatism 
as they can hold.” 

" Deary me ! I didn’t know as my old man was there. 
He tould me he had them all comforble for the winter 
a week ago. But to be sure there’s always some mendin’ 
to do.” 

I heard the voice of Joe outside, and the next moment 
he came into the church. After speaking to me he turned 
to Mrs Coombes. 

" You be cornin’ home with me, mother. This will 
never do. Father ’s as wet as a mop. I ha’ brought 
something for your supper, and Aggy ’s a-cookin’ of it, 
and we’re going to be comfortable over the fire, and 
have a chapter or two of the New Testament to keep 
down the noise of the sea. There ! Come along.” 

The oid woman drew her cloak over her head, put her 
knitting carefully in her pocket, and stood aside for me 
to lead the way. 

“No, no,” I said; "I’m the shepherd and you’re the 
sheep, so I’ll drive you before me — at least you and 
Coombes. Joe here will be offended if I take on me to 
say I am his shepherd.” 

"Nay, nay, don’t say that, sir. You’ve been a good 
shepherd to me, when I was a very sulky sheep. But if 
you ’ll please to go, sir, I ’ll lock the door behind ; for 
you know in them parts the shepherd goes first, and the 
sheep follow the shepherd. And I ’ll follow like a good 
sheep,” he added laughing. 

" You ’re right, Joe,” I said, and took the lead without 
store ado. 


THE GATHERED STORM. 


5*1 


I was struck by his saying them parts , which seemed 
to indicate a habit of pondering on the places as well 
as circumstances of the gospel story. The sexton joined 
us at the door, and we all walked to his cottage, Joe 
taking care of his mother-in-law, and I taking what care 
I could of Coombes by carrying his tools for him. But 
as we went I feared I had done ill in that, for the wind 
blew so fiercely that I thought the thin feeble little man 
would have got on better if he had been more heavily 
weighted against it. But I made him take a hold of my 
arm, and so we got in. The old man took his tools from 
me and set them down in the mill — for the roof of which 
I felt some anxiety as we passed through, so full of wind 
was the whole space. But when we opened the inner 
door the welcome of a glowing fire burst up the stair as 
if that had been a well of warmth and light below. I 
went down with them. Coombes departed to change 
his clothes, and the rest of us stood round the fire where 
Agnes was busy cooking something like white puddings 
for their supper. 

“ Did you hear, sir,” said Joe, “that the coastguard is 
off to the Goose-pot ? There \s a vessel ashore there, 
they su/. I met them on the road with the rocket-cart w 

“ How far off is that, Joe ?” 

“ Some five or six miles, I suppose, along the coast 
uor’ards.” 

• What sort of a vessel is she 1 ” 

* % That I don’t know. Some say she be a schooner, 
others a brigantine. The coastguard didn’t know them* 
stives.” 


523 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ Poor things !” said Mrs Coombes. “ If any of them 
comes ashore, they ’ll be sadly knocked to pieces on the 
rocks in a night like this.” 

She had caught a little infection of her husband’s mode 
of thought. 

“ It ’s not likely to clear up before morning, I fear ; is 
it, Joe?” 

“ I don’t think so, sir. There ’s no likelihood.” 

“ Will you condescend to sit down and take a share 
with us, sir?” said the old woman. 

“ There would be no condescension in that, Mrs 
(.oombes. I will another time with all my heart. But 
in such a night I ought to be at home with my own 
people. They will be more uneasy if I am away ” 

“ Of coorse, of coorse, sir.” 

“ So I ’ll bid you good night. I wish this storm were 
well over.” 

I buttoned my great-coat, pulled my hat down on 
my head, and set out It was getting on for high water. 
The night was growing very dark. There would be a 
moon some time, but the clouds were so dense she 
could not do much while they came between. The 
Toaring of the waves on the shore was terrible : all I 
could see of them now was the whiteness of their break- 
ing, but they filled the earth and the air with their 
furious noises. The wind roared from the sea ; two 
oceans were breaking on the land, only to the one had 
been set a hitherto — to the other none. Ere the night 
was far gone, however, I had begun to doubt whether 
the ocean itself had not broken its bars. 


THE GATHERED STORM. 


529 


I found the whole household full of the storm. The 
children kept pressing their faces to the windows trying 
to pierce as by force of will through the darkness, and 
discover what the wild thing out there was doing. They 
could see nothing ; all was one mass of blackness and 
dismay, with a soul in it of ceaseless roaring. I ran up 
to Connie’s room, and found that she was left alone. 
She looked restless, pale, and frightened. The house 
quivered, and still the wind howled and whistled through 
the adjoining bark-hut. 

“ Connie, darling, have they left you alone ? ** 1 
said. 

“ Only for a few minutes, papa. I don't mind it." 

“ Don’t be frightened at the storm, my dear. He 
who could walk on the sea of Galilee, and still the 
storm of that little pool, can rule the Atlantic just as 
well. Jeremiah says * he divideth the sea when the waves 
thereof roar.’ ” 

The same moment Dora came running into the 
room. 

“ Papa !” she cried, “ the spray — such a lot of it— 
came dashing on the windows in the dining-room. Will 
it break them?” 

“ I hope not, my dear. Just stay with Connie while 
I run down.” 

“ Oh, papa ! I do want to see.* 

u What do you want to see, Dora?” 

“ The storm, papa.” 

“ It is as black as pitch. You can’t see anything.* 

* Oh, but I want to — to— be beside it.” 


530 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ Well, you shan’t stay with Connie, if you are not 
willing. Go along. Ask Wynnie to come here.” 

The child was so possessed by the commotion without, 
that she did not seem even to see my rebuke, not to say 
feel it. She ran off, and Wynnie presently came. I left 
her with Connie, put on a long waterproof cloak, and 
went down to the dining-room. A door led from it 
immediately on to the little green in front of the house, 
between it and the sea. The dining-room was dark, for 
they had put out the lights that they might see better 
from the windows. The children and some of the 
servants were there looking out. I opened the door 
cautiously. It needed the strength of two of the women 
to shut it behind me. The moment I opened it, a great 
sheet of spray rushed over me. I went down the little 
grassy slope. The rain had ceased, and it was not quite 
so dark as I had expected. I could see the gleaming white- 
ness all before me. The next moment a wave roiled 
over the low wall in front of me, breaking on it, and 
wrapping me round in a sheet of water. Something 
hurt me sharply on the leg; and I found on search* 
ing that one of the large flat stones that lay for coping 
on the top of the wall, w^as on the grass beside me. 
If it had struck me straight, it must have broken my 
leg. 

There came a little lull in the wind, and ^ust as I 
turned to go into the house again, I though-, I heard a 
gun. I stood and listened, but heard noriing more, 
and fancied I must have been mistaken. I returned 
and tapped at the door ; but I had to knock loudly 


THE GATHERED STORM. 


531 


before they heard me within. When I went up to the 
drawing-room, I found that Percivale had joined our 
party. He and Turner were talking together at one of 
the windows. 

Did you hear a gun ?” I asked them. 

“ No. Was there one 1 ” 

u I ’m not sure. I half fancied I heard one, but no 
other followed. There will be a good many fired to- 
night, though, along this awful coast.” 

“ I suppose they keep the life-boat always ready," 
said Turner. 

“No life-boat even, I fear, would live in such a sea,’* 
I said, remembering what the officer of the coastguard 
had told me. 

“ They would try, though, I suppose,” said Turner. 

“ I do not know,” said Percivale. “ I don’t know the 
people. But I have seen a life-boat out in as bad a 
night — whether in as bad a sea, I cannot tell: that 
depends on the coast, I suppose.” 

We went on chatting for some time, wondering how 
the coastguard had fared with the vessel ashore at the 
Goosepot Wynnie joined us. 

“ How is Connie, now, my dear ? ” 

u Very restless and excited, papa. I came down to 
say, that if Mr Turner didn’t mind, I wish he would go 
up and see her.” 

“ Of course — instantly,” said Turner, and moved to 
follow Wynnie. 

But the same moment, as if it had been beside us in 
the room, no clear, so shrill was it, we heard Connie’* 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


53 * 


voice shrieking, “ Papa ! papa ! There ’s a great ship 
ashore down there, Come ! come !” 

Turner and I rushed from the room in fear and dis- 
may. “ How 1 What ? Where could the voice come 
from?” was the unformed movement of our thoughts. 
But the moment we left the drawing-room the thing 
was clear, though not the less marvellous and alarming. 
We forgot all about the ship, and thought only of our 
Connie. So much does the near hide the greater that 
is afar ! Connie kept on calling, and her voice guided 
our eyes. 

A little stair led immediately from this floor up to the 
bark-hut, so that it might be reached without passing 
through the bedroom. The door at the top of it was 
open. The door that led from Connie’s room into the 
bark-hut was likewise open, and light shone through it 
into the place — enough to show a figure standing by the 
furthest window with face pressed against the glass. 
And from this figure came the cry, “Papa! papal 
Quick ! quick ! The waves will knock her to piece* I* 

In very truth, it was Connie standing there. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 


THE SHIPWRECK. 

■ HINGS that happen altogether have to be 
told one after the other. Turner and I 
both rushed at the narrow stair. There 
was not room for more than one upon it. 
I was first, but stumbled on the lowest step and fell. 
Turner put his foot on my back, jumped over me, 
sprang up the stair, and when I reached the top of it 
after him, he was meeting me with Connie in his arms, 
carrying her back to her room. But the girl kept 
crying — 

“ Papa, papa ! the ship, the ship ! M 
My duty woke in me. Turner could attend to Con- 
nie far better than I could. I made one spring to the 
window. The moon was not to be seen, but the clouds 
were thinner, and light enough was soaking through 
them to show a wave-tormented mass some little way 
out in the bay; and in that one moment in which I 


534 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


stood looking, a shriek pierced the howling of the wind, 
cutting through it like a knife. I rushed bare-headed 
from the house. When or how the resolve was born in 
me 1 do not know, but I flew straight to the sexton’s, 
snatched the key from the wall, crying only “ship 
ashore ! ” and rushed to the church. 

I remember my hand trembled so that I could hardly 
get the key into the lock. I made myself quieter, 
opened the door, and feeling my way to the tower, knelt 
before the keys of the bell-hammers, opened the chest, and 
struck them wildly, fiercely. An awful jangling, out of 
tune and harsh, burst into monstrous being in the storm- 
vexed air. Music itself was untuned, corrupted, and re • 
turning to chaos. I struck and struck at the keys. I 
knew nothing of their normal use. Noise, outcry, reveilik 
was all I meant. 

In a few minutes I heard voices and footsteps. From 
some parts of the village, out of sight of the shore, men 
and women gathered to the summons. Through the 
door of the church, which I had left open, came voices 
m nurried question. “Ship ashore!” was all I could 
answer, for what was to be done I was helpless to think. 

I wondered that so few appeared at the cry of the bells, 
After those first nobody came for what seemed a long 
time. I believe, however, I was beating the alarum for 
only a few minutes altogether, though when I look back 
upon the time in the dark church, it looks like half-an- 
hour at least But indeed I feel so confused about all 
the doings of that night that in attempting to describe 
them in order, I feel as if I were walking in a dreank 


THE SHIPWRECK. 


535 


Still, from comparing mine with the recollected impres- 
sions of others, I think I am able to give a tolerably 
correct result Most of the incidents seem burnt into 
my memory so that nothing could destroy the depth of 
the impression ; but the order in which they took place 
is none the less doubtful 

A hand was laid on my shoulder. 

“ Who is there ?” I said, for it was far too dark to 
know any one. 

“Percivale. What is to be done? The coastguard 
is away. Nobody seems to know about anything. It is 
pf no use to go on ringing more. Everybody is out, even 
L> the maid-servants. Come down to the shore and you 
will see.” 

“ But is there not the life-boat ? " 

“ Nobody seems to know anything about it, except 
that ‘it’s no manner of use to go trying of that with 
such a sea on.’ ” 

“ But there must be some one in command of it,” I 
said. 

“ Yes,” returned Percivale. “ But there doesn’t seem 
to be one of the crew amongst the crowd. All the sailor- 
like fellows are going about with their hands in their 
pockets.” 

“ Let us make haste, thep,” I said ; “ perhaps we can 
find out. Are you sure the coastguard have nothing to 
do with the life-boat ? ” 

“ I believe not They have enough to do with their 
lockets.” 

“ I remember now that Roxton told me he had fas 


53 « 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


more confidence in his rockets than in anything a life- 
boat could do, upon this coast at least.” 

While we spoke, we came to the bank of the canal. 
This we had to cross, in order to reach that part of the 
shore opposite which the wreck lay. To my surprise, 
the canal itself was in a storm, heaving and tossing and 
dashing over its banks. 

“ Percivale ! ” I exclaimed, “the gates are gone! 
The sea has tom them away.” 

“ Yes ; I suppose so. Would God I could get half-a- 
dozen men to help me. I have been doing what I could ; 
but I have no influence amongst them.” 

“ What do you mean V’ I asked. “ What could you 
do if you had a thousand men at your command ? ” 

He made me no answer for a few moments, during 
which we were hurrying on for the bridge over the canal. 
Then he said — 

“ They regard me only as a meddling stranger, I sup- 
pose, for I have been able to get no useful answer. They 
are all excited, but nobody is doing anything.” 

“ They must know about it a great deal better than 
we,” I returned ; “and we must take care not to do them 
the injustice of supposing they are not ready to do all 
that can be done.” 

Percivale was silent yet again. 

The record of our conversation looks as quiet on the 
paper as if we had been talking in a curtained room, but 
all the time the ocean was raving in my very ear, and 
the awful tragedy was going on in the dark behind us. 
The wind was almost as loud as ever, but the rain had 


THE SHIPWRECK. 


537 


quite ceased, and when we reached the bridge the moon 
shone out white, as if aghast at what she had at length 
succeeded in pushing the clouds aside that she might 
see. Awe and helplessness oppressed us. Having 
crossed the canal, we turned to the shore. There was 
little of it left, for the waves had rushed up almost to 
the village. The sand and the roads, every garden wall, 
every window that looked seaward, was crowded with 
gazers. But it was a wonderfully quiet crowd, or seemed 
so at least, for the noise of the wind and the waves filled 
the whole vault, and what was spoken was heard only in 
the ear to which it was spoken. When we came amongst 
them we heard only a* murmur as of more articulated con- 
fusion. One turn, and we saw the centre of strife and 
anxiety — the heart of the storm that filled heaven and 
earth, upon which all the blasts and the billows broke 
and raved. 

Out there in the moonlight lay a mass of something 
whose place was discernible by the flashing of the waves 
as they burst over it. She was far above low-water mark 
— lay nearer the village by a furlong than the spot where 
we had taken our last dinner on the shore. It was 
strange to think that yesterday the spot lay bare to 
human feet, where now so many men and women were 
isolated in a howling waste of angry waters ; for the cry 
of women came plainly to our ears, and we were helpless 
to save them. It was terrible to have to do nothing. 
Percivale went about hurriedly, talking to this one and 
that one, as if he still thought something might be don^ 
He turned to me. 


538 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“Do try, Mr Walton, and find out for me where the 
aptain of the life-boat is.” 

I turned to a sailor-like man who stood at my elbow 
and asked him. 

“ It ’s no use, I assure you, sir,” he answered. “ No 
boat could live in such a sea. It would be throwing 
away the men’s lives.” 

“ Do you know where the captain lives ? ” Percivale 
asked. 

“ If I did, I tell you it is of no use.” 

“Are you the captain yourself?” returned Perci- 
vale. 

“What is that to you?” he answered — surly now. 
“ I know my own business.” 

The same moment several of the crowd nearest the 
edge of the water made a simultaneous rush into the 
surf, and laid hold of something, which, as they returned 
drawing it to the shore, I saw to be a human form. It 
was the body of a woman — alive or dead I could not 
tell. I could just see the long hair hanging from the 
head which itself hung backward helplessly as they bore 
her up the bank. I saw too a white face, and I can 
recall no more. . 

“Run, Percivale,” I said, “and fetch Turner. She 
may not be dead yet.” 

“ I can’t,” answered Percivale. “ You had better go 
yourself, Mr Walton.” 

He spoke hurriedly. I saw he must have some rea- 
son for answering me so abruptly. He was talking to a 
young fellow whom I recognized as one of the most dis- 


THE SHIPWRECK. 


539 


solute in the village ; and just as I turned to go, they 
walked away together. 

I sped home as fast as I could. It was easier to get 
along now that the moon shone. I found that Turner 
had given Connie a composing dra ight, and that he had 
good hopes she would at least be nothing the worse for 
the marvellous result of her excitement. She was asleep 
exhausted, and her mother was watching by her side. 
It seemed strange that she could sleep, but Turner said 
it was the safest reaction — partly, however, occasioned 
by what he had given her. In her sleep she kept on 
talking about the ship. 

We hurried back to see if anything could be done for 
the woman. As we went up the side of the canal, we 
perceived a dark body meeting us. The clouds had 
again obscured, though not quite hidden the moon, and 
we could not at first make out what it was. When we 
came nearer it showed itself a body of men hauling 
something along. Yes, it was the life-boat, afloat on the 
troubled waves of the canal, each man seated in his own 
place, his hands quiet upon his oar, his cork jacket 
braced about him, his feet out before him, ready to pull 
the moment they should pass beyond the broken gates 
of the lock out on the awful tossing of waves. They 
sat very silent, and the men on the path towed them 
swiftly along. The moon uncovered her face for 4 
moment, and shone upon the faces of two of the rowers. 

“ Percivale ! Joe ! ” I cried. 

“ All right, sir !” said Joe. 

“ Does your wife know of it, Joe 1” I almost gasped, 


540 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ To be sure,” answered Joe. “ It’s the first chance 
I ’ve had of returning thanks for her. Please God, I 
shall see her again to-night.” 

“That's good, Joe Trust in God, my men, whether 
you sink or swim.” 

“ Ay, ay, sir,” they answered as one man. 

“ This is your doing, Percivale,” I said, turning and * 
walking alongside of the boat for a little way. 

“ It's more Jim Allen’s,” said Percivale. “ If I hadn’t 
got a hold of him I couldn’t have done anything.” 

“God bless you, Jim Allen,” I said. * You ’ll be a 
better man after this, I think.” 

“ Donnow, sir,” returned Jim, cheerily. “ It’s harder 
work than pulling an oar.” 

The captain himself was on board. Percivale having 
persuaded Jim Allen, the two had gone about in the 
crowd seeking proselytes. In a wonderfully short space 
they had found almost all the crew, each fresh one pick 
ing up another or more, till at length the captain, pro- 
testing against the folly of it, gave in, and once having 
yielded, was, like a true Englishman, as much in earnest 
as any of them. The places of two who were missing 
were supplied by Percivale and Joe, the latter of whom 
would listen to no remonstrance. 

“ I *ve nothing to lose,” Percivale had said. “ You 
have a young wife, Joe.” 

“I’ve everything to win,” Joe had returned. “The 
only thing that makes me feel a bit faint-hearted over it, 
is that 1 'm afraid it ’s not my duty that drives me to it, 
but the praise of men, leastways of a woman. What 


THE SHIPWRECK. 


54i 


would Aggy think of me if I was to let them drown out 
tnere and go to my bed and sleep ? I must go.” 

“Very well, Joe,” returned Percivale. “I daresay 
you are right. You can row, of course]” 

“ I can row hard, and do as I ’m told,” said Joe; 

“ All right,” said Percivale. “ Come along.” 

This I heard afterwards. We were now hurrying 
against the wind towards the mouth of the canal, some 
twenty men hauling on the tow-rope. The critical mo- 
ment would be in the clearing of the gates, I thought, 
some parts of which might remain swinging. But they 
encountered no difficulty there, as I heard afterwards. 
For I remembered that this was not my post, and turned 
again to follow the doctor. 

“ God bless you, my men !” I said, and left them. 

They gave a great hurrah, and sped on to meet their 
fate. I found Turner in the little public-house whither 
they had carried the body. The woman was quite dead. 

“ I fear it is an emigrant vessel,” he said. 

“ Why do you think so?” I asked, in some consterna- 
tion. 

“ Come and look at the body,” he said. 

It was that of a woman about twenty, tall and finely 
formed. The face was very handsome, but it did not 
need the evidence of the hands to prove that she was 
one of our sisters who have to labour for their bread. 

“ What should such a girl be doing on board ship but 
going out to America or Australia ?— to her lover, per- 
haps,” said Turner. “ You see she has a locket on her 
neck. I hope nobody will dare to take it off. Some o i 


54 * 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


these people are not far derived from those who thought 
a wreck a Godsend.” 

A sound of many feet was at the door just as we 
turned to leave the house. They were bringing another 
body — that of an elderly woman — dead, quite dead. 
Turner had ceased examining her, and we were going 
out together, when, through all the tumult of the wind 
and waves, a fierce hiss, vindictive, wrathful, tore the 
air over our heads. Far up, seawards, something like a 
fiery snake shot from the high ground on the right side 
of the bay, over the vessel, and into the water beyond it. 

“ Thank God ! that ’s the coastguard,” I cried. 

We rushed through the village, and up on the heights, 
where they had planted their apparatus. A little crowd 
surrounded them. How dismal the sea looked in the 
struggling moonlight ! I felt as if I were wandering in 
the mazes of an evil dream. But when I approached 
the cliff, and saw down below the great mass of the 
vessel’s hulk, with the waves breaking every moment 
upon her side, I felt the reality awful indeed. Now 
and then there would come a kind of lull in the wild 
sequence of rolling waters, and then I fancied for a 
moment that I saw how she rocked on the bottom. 
Her masts had all gone by the board, and a perfect 
chaos of cordage floated and swung in the waves that 
broke over her. But her bowsprit remained entire, and 
shot out into the foamy dark, crowded with human 
beings. The first rocket had missed. They were pre- 
paring to fire another. Roxton stood with his telescope 
iu his hand, ready to watch the result 


THE SHIPWRECK. 


543 


“ This is a terrible job, sir,” he said when I ap- 
proached him. “ I doubt if we shall save one of them.” 

“ There ’s the life-boat I ” I cried, as a dark spot ap- 
peared on the waters approaching the vessel from the 
other side. 

“ The life-boat ! * he returned with contempt. “ You 
don’t mean to say they ’ve got her out ! She ’ll only 
add to the mischief. We’ll have to save her too.” 

She was still some way from the vessel, and in com- 
paratively smooth water. But between her and the hull 
the sea raved in madness. The billows rode over each 
other, in pursuit, as it seemed, of some invisible prey. 
Another hiss, as of concentrated hatred, and the second 
rocket was shooting its parabola through the dusky 
air. Roxton raised his telescope to his eye the same 
moment. 

“ Over her starn 1 ” he cried. u There ’s a fellow get- 
ting down from the cat-head to run aft. — Stop, stop ! * 
he shouted involuntarily. “ There ’s an awful wave on 
your quarter.” 

His voice was swallowed in the roaring cf the storm. 
I fancied I could distinguish a dark something shoot 
from the bows towards the stern. But the huge wave 
fell upon the wreck. The same moment Roxton ex- 
claimed — so coolly as to amaze me, forgetting how men 
must come to regard familiar things without discom- 
posure — 

“ He ’s gone ! I said so. The next ’ll have bettef 
luck, I hope.” 

That man came ashore alive, though. 


544 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


All were forward of the foremast. The bowsprit, 
when I looked through Roxton’s telescope, was shape- 
less as with a swarm of bees. Now and then a single 
shriek rose upon the wild air. But now my attention 
was fixed on the life-boat. She had got into the wildest 
of the broken water. At one moment she was down in 
a huge cleft, the next balanced like a beam on the knife 
edge of a wave, tossed about hither and thither as if the 
waves delighted in mocking the rudder. But hitherto 
she had shipped no water. I am here drawing upon the 
information I have since received ; but I did see how a 
huge wave, following close upon the back of that on 
which she floated, rushed, towered up over her, toppled, 
and fell upon the life-boat with tons of water ; the moon 
was shining brightly enough to show this with tolerable 
distinctness. The boat vanished. The next moment, 
there she was, floating helplessly about like a living 
thing stunned by the blow of the falling wave. The 
struggle was over. As far as I could see, every man 
was in his place ; but the boat drifted away before the 
storm shorewards, and the men let her drift. Weie 
they all killed as they sat 1 I thought of my Wynnie, 
and turned to Roxton. 

“ That wave has done for them/’ he said. “ I told 
you it was no use. There they go.” 

“ But what is the matter ?” I asked. “The men are 
fitting every man in his place.” 

“I think so,” he answered. “Two were swept over- 
board, but they caught the ropes and got in again. But 
don’t you see they have no oars 1 " 


THE SHIPWRECK. 


545 


That wave had broken every one of them off at the 
rowlocks, and now they were as helpless as a sponge. 

I turned and ran. Before I reached the brow of the 
hill another rocket was fired and fell wide shorewards, 
partly because the wind blew with fresh fury at the very 
moment. I heard Roxton say, “ She’s breaking up. 
It’s no use. That last did for her;” but I hurried off 
for the other side of the bay, to see what became of the 
life-boat. I heard a great cry from the vessel as I 
reached the brow of the hill, and turned for a parting 
glance. The dark mass had vanished, and the waves 
were rushing at will over the space. When I got to the 
shore the crowd was less. Many were running, like my- 
self, towards the other side, anxious about the life-boat 
I hastened after them ; for Percivale and Joe filled my 
heart 

They led the way to the little beach in front of the 
parsonage. It would be well for the crew if they were 
driven ashore there, for it was the only spot where they 
could escape being dashed on rocks. 

There was a crowd before the garden -wall, a bustle, 
and great confusion of speech. The people, men and 
women, boys and girls, were all gathered about the crew 
of the life-boat, which already lay, as if it knew of 
nothing but repose, on the grass within. 

“ Percivale ! ” I cried, making my way through the 
crowd. 

There was no answer. 

“ Joe Harper ! ” I cried again, searching with eager 
eyes amongst the crew, to whom everybody was talking. 

2 M 


54* 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


Still there was no answer ; and from the disjointed 
phrases I heard, I could gather nothing. All at once I 
saw Wynnie looking over the wall, despair in her face, 
her wide eyes searching wildly through the crowd. I 
could not look at her till I knew the worst. The cap- 
tain was talking to old Coombes. I went up to him. 
As soon as he saw me, he gave me his attention. 

“ Where is Mr Percivale ? ” I asked, with all the calm- 
ness I could assume. 

He took me by the arm, and drew me out of the 
crowd, nearer to the waves, and a little nearer to the 
mouth of the canal. The tide had fallen considerably, 
else there would not have been the standing-room, nar- 
row as it was, which the people now occupied. He 
pointed in the direction of the Castle-rock. 

“ If you mean the stranger gentleman ” 

“And Joe Harper, the blacksmith/ I interposed. 

“ They ’re there, sir.” 

‘‘You don’t mean those two — just those two — are 
drowned?” I said. 

“ No, sir ; I don’t say that; but God knows they have 
little chance.” 

I could not help thinking that God might know they 
were not in the smallest danger. But I only begged him 
to tell me where they were. 

“ Do you see that schooner there, just between yoti 
•i.d the Castle-rock ? ” 

“No.” I answered; “I can see nothing. Stay. I 
fancy 1 can. But I am always ready to fancy I see a 
thing when I anN told it is there. I can’t say I see it** 


THE SHIPWRECK. 


*47 


“ I can, though. The gentleman yC\u mean, and Toe 
Harper too, are, I believe, on board of that schooner.” 

“ Is she aground ?” 

u Oh dear no, sir. She ’s a light craft, and can swim 
there well enough. If she d been aground, she ’d ha* 
been ashore in pieces hours ago. But whether she ’ll 
tide it out, God only knows, as 1 said afore.” 

“ How ever did they get aboard of her 1 I never saw 
her from the heights opposite.” 

“ You were all taken up with the ship ashore, you see, 
sir. And she don’t make much show in this light. Bui 
there she is, and they ’re aboard of her. And this is how 
it was.” 

He went on to give me his part of the story ; but 1 
will now give the whole of it myself, as I have gathered 
and pieced it together. 

Two men had been swept overboard, as Roxton said 
—one of them was Percivale — but they had both got on 
board again, to drift, oarless, with the rest — now in a 
a windless valley— now aloft on a tempest-swept hill 
of water — away towards a goal they knew not, neither 
had chosen, and which yet they could by no means 
avoid. 

A little out of the full force of the current, and not 
far from the channel of the small stream, which, when 
the tide was out, flowed across the sands nearly from the 
canal-gates to the Castle-rock, lay a little schooner 
belonging to a neighbouring port, Roscastle, I think, 
which, caught in the storm, had been driven into the 
bay when it was almost dark, some considerable time 


54 * 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


before the great ship. The master, however, knew the 
ground welL The current carried him a little out of the 
wind, and would have thrown him upon the rocks next, 
but he managed to drop anchor just in time, and the 
cable held; and there the little schooner hung in the 
skirts of the storm, with the jagged teeth of the rocks 
within an arrow-flight In the excitement of the great 
wreck, no one had observed the danger of the little 
coasting bird. If the cable held till the tide went down, 
and the anchor did not drag, she would be safe ; if not, 
*he must be dashed to pieces. 

In the schooner were two men and a boy : two men 
had been washed overboard an hour or so before they 
reached the bay. When they had dropped their anchor, 
they lay down exhausted on the deck. Indeed they 
were so worn out that they had been unable to drop 
their sheet-anchor, and were holding on only by their 
best bower. Had they not been a good deal out of the 
wind, this would have been useless. Even if it held she 
was in danger of having her bottom stove in by bumping 
against the sands as the tide went out. But that they 
had not to think of yet. The moment they lay down 
they fell asleep in the middle of the storm. While they 
slept it increased in violence. 

Suddenly one of them awoke, and thought he saw a 
vision of angels. For over his head faces looked down 
upon hi.m from the air — that is, from the top of a great 
wave. The same moment he heard a voice, two of the 
angels dropped on the deck beside him, and the rest 
%i*nished. Those angels were Percivale and Joe. And 


THE SHIPWRECK. 


549 


angels they were, for they came just in time, as all angels 
do— never a moment too soon or a moment too late : 
the schooner was dragging her anchor. This was soon 
plain even to the less experienced eyes of the said 
angels. 

But it did not take them many minutes now to drop 
their strongest anchor, and they were soon riding in 
perfect safety for some time to come. 

One of the two men was the son of old Coombes, 
the sexton, who was engaged to marry the girl I have 
spoken of in the end of the twenty-first chapter. 

Percivale’s account of the matter, as far as he was 
concerned, was, that, as they drifted helplessly along, he 
suddenly saw from the top of a huge wave, the little 
vessel below him. They were, in fact, almost upon the 
rigging. The wave on which they rode swept the quar- 
ter-deck of the schooner. 

Percivale says the captain of the life-boat called out 
“ Aboard ! ” The captain said he remembered nothing 
of the sort ; if he did, he must have meant it for the 
men on the schooner — to get on board the life-boat. 
Percivale, however, who had a most chivalrous — ought 
I not to say Christian? — notion of obedience, fancy- 
ing the captain meant them to board the schooner, 
sprang at her fore shrouds. Thereupon, the wave 
sweeping them along the schooner’s side, Joe sprang 
on the main-shrouds; and they dropped on the deck 
together. 

But although my reader is at ease about their fate, we 

who were in the affair were anything but easy at the 


550 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


time corresponding to this point of the narrative. It 
was a terrible night we passed through. 

When I returned, which was almost instantly, for I 
could do nothing by staring out in the direction of the 
schooner, I found that the crowd was nearly gone. One 
little group alone remained behind, the centre of which 
was a woman. Wynnie had disappeared. The woman 
who remained behind was Agnes Harper. 

The moon shone out clear as I approached the group. 
Indeed the clouds were breaking up, and drifting away 
off the heavens. The storm had raved out its business, 
and was departing into the past. 

“ Agnes,” I said. 

" Yes, sir,” she answered, and looked up as if waiting 
for a command. There was no colour in her cheeks or 
in her lips — at least it seemed so in the moonlight — only 
in her eyes. But she was perfectly calm. She was lean- 
ing against the low wall, with her hands clasped, but 
hanging quietly down before her. 

“ The storm is breaking up, Agnes,” I said. 

“Yes, sir,” she answered, in the same still tone. 
Then, after just a moment’s pause, she spoke out of her 
heart. 

“Joe’s at his duty, sir?” 

1 have given the utterance a point of interrogattion ; 
whether she meant that point I am not quite sure. 

“ Indubitably,” I returned. “ I have such faith in Joe, 
that I should be sure of that in any case. At all events, 
he’s not taking care of his own life. And if one is to 
go wrong, I would ten thousand times rather err on tha* 


THK SHIPWBECK. 


551 


side. But I am sure Joe has been doing right, and 
nothing else.” 

“ Then there’s nothing to be said, sir — is there ?” she 
returned, with a sigh that sounded as of relief. 

I presume some of the surrounding condolers had 
been giving her Job’s comfort by blaming her hus- 
band. 

“ Do you remember, Agnes, what the Lord said to his 
mother when she reproached him with having left her 
and his father?” 

“ I can’t remember anything at this moment, sir,” was 
her touching answer. 

“ Then I will tell you. He said, * Why did you look 
for me ? Didn’t you know that I must be about some- 
thing my Father had given me to do?’ Now Joe was 
and is about his Father’s business, and you must not be 
anxious about him. There could be no better reason for 
not being anxious.” 

Agnes was a very quiet woman : when without a word 
she took my hand and kissed it, I felt what a depth there 
was in the feeling she could not utter. I did not with- 
draw my hand, for I knew that would be to rebuke her 
love for Joe. 

u Will you come in and wait ? ” I said indefinitely. 

“ No, thank you, sir. I must go to my mother. God 
will look after Joe : won’t he, sir ?” 

“ As sure as there is a God, Agnes,” I said ; and she 
went away without another word. 

I put my hand on the top of the wall and jumped 
over. I started back with terror, for I had almost 


55 * 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


alighted on the body of a woman lying there. The 
first insane suggestion was that it had been cast ashore ^ 
but the next moment I knew that it was my own 
Wynnie. 

She had not even fainted. She was lying with her 
handkerchief stuffed into her mouth to keep her from 
screaming. When I uttered her name, she rose, and 
without looking at me, walked away towards the house, 
I followed. She went straight to her own room and shut 
the door. I went to find her mother. She was with 
Connie, who was now awake, lying pale and frightened. 
1 told Ethel wyn that Percivale and Joe were on board 
the little schooner, which was holding on by her 
anchor, that Wynnie was in terror about Percivale, that 
I had found her lying on the wet grass, and that she 
must get her into a warm bath and to bed. We went 
together to her room. 

She was standing in the middle of the floor, with her 
hands pressed against her temples. 

“ Wynnie,” I said, “ our friends are not drowned. I 
think you will see them quite safe in the morning. Pray 
to God for them.” 

She did not hear a word. 

“ Leave her with me,” said Ethelwyn, proceeding to 
undress her, “ and tell nurse to bring up the large 
bath. There is plenty of hot water in the boiler: I 
gave orders to that effect, not knowing what might 
happen.” 

Wynnie shuddered as her mother said this ; but I 
waited no longer, for when Ethelwyn spoke, every one 


THE SHIPWRECK. 


553 


felt her authority. I obeyed her, and then went ta 
Connie’s room. 

“ Do you mind being left alone a little while ? ” I asked 
her, 

“ No, papa. Only are they all drowned 1 ” she said 

with a shudder. 

I hope not, my dear. But be sure of the mercy of 
God whatever you fear. You must rest in him, my love, 
for he is Life, and will conquer death both in the soul 
and in the body.” 

“ I was not thinking of myself, papa.” 

“ I know that, my dear. But God is thinking of you 
and every creature that he has made. And for our sakes 
you must be quiet in heart, that you may get better, and 
be able to help us.” 

“ I will try, papa,” she said ; and, turning slowly on 
her side, she lay quite still. 

Dora and the boys were all fast asleep, for it was very 
late. I cannot, however, say what hour it was. 

Telling nurse to be on the watch because Connie 
was alone, I went again to the beach. I called first, 
however, to inquire after Agnes. I found her quite 
composed, sitting with her parents by the fire, none of 
them doing anything, scarcely speaking, only listening 
intently to the sounds of the storm now beginning 
to die away. 

I next went to the place where I had left Turner. 
Five bodies lay there, and he was busy with a sixth. 
The surgeon of the place was with him. and they quite 
expected to recover this man. 


554 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


I then went down to the sands. An officer of the 
revenue was taking charge of all that came ashore — 
chests and bales, and everything. For a week the sea 
went on casting out the fragments of that which she had 
destroyed. I have heard that, for years after, the shift- 
ing of the sands would now and then discover things 
buried that night by the waves. 

All the next day the bodies kept coming ashore, some 
peaceful as in sleep; others broken and mutilated. Many 
were cast upon other parts of the coast. Some four or 
five only, all men, were recovered. It was strange to me 
how I got used to it. The first horror over, the cry that 
yet another body had come, awoke only a gentle pity, 
no more dismay or shuddering. But finding I could be 
of no use, I did not wait longer than just till the morn- 
ing began to dawn with a pale ghastly light over the 
seething raging sea — for the sea raged on, although the 
wind had gone down. There were many strong men 
about, with two surgeons, and all the coastguard, who 
were well accustomed to similar though not such exten- 
sive destruction ; the houses along the shore were at the 
disposal of any one who wanted aid ; the parsonage was 
at some distance ; and I confess that when I thought of 
the state of my daughters, as well as remembered former 
influences upon my wife, I was very glad to think there 
was no necessity for carrying thither any of those whom 
the waves cast on the shore. 

When I reached home, and found Wynnie quieter, 
and Connie again asleep, I walked out along our own 
downs, till I came whence I could see the little 


THE SHIPWRECK, 


55S 


schooner still safe at anchor. From her position I 
concluded, correctly as I found afterwards, that they 
had let out her cable far enough to allow her to reach 
the bed of the little stream, where the tide would leave 
her more gently. She was clearly out of all danger 
now, and if Percivale and Joe had got safe on board of 
her, we might confidently expect to see them before 
many hours were past. I went home with the good 
news. 

For a few moments I doubted whether I should tell 
Wynnie, for I could not know with any certainty that 
Percivale was in the schooner. But presently I recalled 
former conclusions to the effect that we have no right to 
modify God’s facts for fear of what may be to come. A 
little hope founded on a present appearance, even if 
that hope should never be realized, may be the very 
means of enabling a soul to bear the weight of a sorrow 
past the point at which it would otherwise break down. 
I would therefore tell Wynnie, and let her share my ex- 
pectation of deliverance. 

I think she had been half-asleep, for when I entered 
lier room, she started up in a sitting posture, looking wild, 
and putting her hands to her head. 

“ I have brought you good news, Wynnie,” I said. 
u I have been out on the downs, and there is light 
enough now to see that the little schooner is quite 
safe/ 

“What schooner V’ she asked listlessly, and lay down 
again, her eyes still staring awfully unappeased. 

“ Why the schooner they say Percivale got on hoard." 


50 


THB SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ He isn’t drowned then !” she cried with a choking 
voice, and put her hands to her face, and burst into tears 
and sobs. 

<{ Wynnie,” I said, “ look what your faithlessness brings 
upon you. Everybody but you has known all night that 
Percivale and Joe Harper are probably quite safe. They 
may be ashore in a couple of hours.” 

“ But you don’t know it. He may be drowned yet.” 

u Of course there is room for doubt — but none for 
despair. See what a poor helpless creature hopelessness 
makes you.” 

“ But how can I help it, papa ? ” she asked piteously. 
“Iam made so.” 

But as she spoke, the dawn was clear upon the height 
of her forehead. 

“ You are not made yet, as I am always telling you. 
And God has ordained that you shall have a hand in 
your own making. You have to consent, to desire that 
what you know for a fault shall be set right by his loving 
will and spirit” 

“ I don’t know God, papa.” 

“ Ah, my dear ! that is where it all lies. You do not 
know him, or you would never be without hope.” 

“ But what am I to do to know him 1” she asked, rising 
on her elbow. 

The saving power of hope was already working in her. 
She was once more turning her face towards the Life. 

“Read as you have never read before about Christ 
Jesus, my love. Read with the express object of finding 
out what God is like, that you may know him, and may 


THE SHIPWRECK. 


557 


trust him. And now give yourself to him, and he will 
give you sleep.” 

“ What are we to do,” I said to my wife, “ if Percivale 
continue silent? For even if he be in love with her, 7 
doubt if he will speak.” 

“ We must leave all that, Harry,” she answered. 

She was turning on myself the counsel I had been 
giving Wynnie. It is strange how easily we can tell oui 
brother what he ought to do, and yet, when the case 
comes to be our own, do precisely as we had rebuked 
him for doing. I lay down and fell fast asleep. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 


THE FUNERAL. 

was a lovely morning when I woke once 
more. The sun was flashing back from the 
sea, which was still tossing, but no longer 
furiously, only as if it wanted to turn itself 
every way to flash the sunlight about The madness of 
the night was over and gone ; the light was abroad, and 
the world was rejoicing. When I reached the drawing- 
room — which afforded the best outlook over the shore, 
there was the schooner lying dry on the sands, her two 
cables and anchors stretching out yards behind her. But 
halfway between the two sides of the bay rose a mass 
of something shapeless, drifted over with sand. It was 
all that remained together of the great ship that had the 
day before swept over the waters like a live thing with 
wings — of all the works of man’s hands the nearest to 
the shape and sign of life. The wind had ceased alto 
gether, only now and then a little breeze arose which 



THE FUNERAL. 


559 


murmured “ I am very sorry,” and lay down again. And 
I knew that in the houses on the shore dead men and 
women were lying. 

I went down to the dining-room. The three children 
were busy at their breakfast, but neither wife, daughter, 
nor visitor had yet appeared. I made a hurried meal, 
and was just rising to go and inquire further into the 
events of the night, when the door opened, and in walked 
Percivale, looking very solemn, but in perfect health and 
well-being. I grasped his hand warmly. 

“ Thank God,” I said, “ that you are returned to us, 
Percivale.” 

“I doubt if that is much to give thanks for,” he 
said. 

“ We are the judges of that,” I rejoined. u Tell me 
all about it.” 

While he was narrating the events I have already com- 
municated, Wynnie entered. She started, turned pale 
and then very red, and for a moment hesitated in the 

doorway. 

“ Here is another to rejoice at your safety, Percivale,’* 
I said. 

Thereupon he stepped forward to meet her, and she 
gave him her hand with an emotion so evident that I 
felt a little distressed — why I could not easily have told, 
for she looked most charming in the act, — more lovely 
than I had ever seen her. Her beauty was unconsciously 
praising God, and her heart would soon praise him too. 
But Percivale was a modest man, and I think attributed 
her emotion to the fact that he had been in danger in the 


S6o 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


way of duty, — a fact sufficient to move the heart of any 
good woman. 

She sat down and began to busy herself with the tea- 
pot. Her hand trembled. I requested Percivale to begin 
his story once more ; and he evidently enjoyed recount- 
ing to her the adventures of the night. 

I asked him to sit down and have a second breakfast 
while I went into the village, whereto he seemed nothing 
loath. 

As I crossed the floor of the old mill to see how Joe 
nas, the head of the sexton appeared emerging from it. 
He looked full of weighty solemn business. Bidding me 
good morning, he turned to the corner where his tools 
lay, and proceeded to shoulder spade and pickaxe 

“Ah, Coombes! you’ll want them,” I said. 

“A good many o’ my people be come all at once, 
you see, sir,” he returned. “ I shall have enough ado to 
make ’em all comfortable like.” 

“ But you must get help, you know. You can never 
make them all comfortable yourself alone.” 

“We’ll see what I can do,” he returned. “I ben’t a 
bit willing to let no one do my work for me, I do assure 
you, sir.” 

“How many are there wanting ycur services?” I 
asked. 

“ There be fifteen of them now, and there be more, I 
don’t doubt on the way.” 

“ But you won’t think of making separate graves for 
them all,” I said. “They died together: let them lie 
together.” 


THE FUNERAL 


«;6i 


The old man set down his tools, and looked me in 
the face with indignation. The face was so honest and 
old, that without feeling I had deserved it, I yet felt the 
rebuke. 

“ How would you like, sir,” he said, at length, “ to be 
put in the same bed with a lot of people you didn’t know 
nothing about?” 

I knew the old man’s way, and that any argument 
which denied the premiss of his peculiar fancy, was 
worse than thrown away upon him. I therefore ven- 
tured no farther than to say that I had heard death was 
a leveller. 

“ That be very true ; and, mayhap, they mightn’t 
think of it after they’d been down awhile — six weeks, 
mayhap, or so. But anyhow, it can’t be comfortable 
for ’em, poor things. One on ’em be a baby : I daresay 
he ’d rather lie with his mother. The doctor he say one 
o’ the women be a mother. I don’t know,” he went on 
reflectively, “ whether she be the baby’s own mother, 
but I daresay neither o’ them ’ll mind it if I take it for 
granted, and lay ’em down together. So that ’s one bed 
less.” 

One thing was clear, that the old man could not dig 
fourteen graves within the needful time. But I would 
not interfere with his office in the church, having no 
reason to doubt that he would perform its duties to per- 
fection. He shouldered his tools again and walked out. 
I descended the stair, thinking to see Joe ; but there was 
no one there but the old woman. 

<4 Where are Joe and Agnes?” 


M V 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


$6* 


“You see, sir, Joe had promised a little job of work 
to be ready to-day, and so he couldn’t stop. He did 
say Agnes needn’t go with him ; but she thought she 
couldn’t part with him so soon, you see, sir.” 

“ She had received him from the dead — raised to life 
again,” I said. “ It was most natural. But what a 
fine fellow Joe is: nothing will make him neglect his 
work !” 

“ I tried to get him to stop, sir, saying he had done 
quite enough last night for all next day; but he told me 
it was his business to get the tire put on Farmer Wheat- 
stone’s c<trt wheel to-day just as much as it was his busi- 
ness to go in the life-boat yesterday. So he would go, 
and Aggy wouldn’t stay behind.” 

“ Fine fellow, Joe !” I said, and took my leave. 

As I drew near the village, I heard the sound of 
hammering and sawing, and apparently everything at 
once in the way of joinery: they were making the 
coffins in the joiners’ shops, of which there were two in 
the place. 

I do not like coffins. They seem to me relics of bar- 
barism. If I had my way, I would have the old thing 
decently wound in a fair linen cloth, and so laid in the 
bosom of the earth whence it was taken. I would have 
it vanish, not merely from the world of vision, but from 
the world of form, as soon as may be. The embrace 
of the fine life-hoarding, life-giving mould, seems to me 
comforting, in the vague, foolish fancy that will some- 
times emerge from the froth of reverie — I mean of sub- 
dued consciousness remaining in the outworn frame. 


THE FUNERAL. 


561 


But the coffin is altogether and vilely repellent. Of this, 
how iver, enough. I hate even the shadow of sentiment, 
though some of my readers who may not yet have learned 
to distinguish between sentiment and feeling, may wondei 
how I dare to utter such a barbarism. 

I went to the house of the county magistrate hard by, 
for I thought something might have to be done in which 
I had a share. I found that he had sent a notice of the 
loss of the vessel to the Liverpool papers, requesting 
those who might wish to identify or claim any of the 
bodies, to appear within four days at Kilkhaven. 

This threw the last upon Saturday, and before the end 
of the week it was clear that they must not remain above 
ground over Sunday. I therefore arranged that they 
should be buried late on the Saturday night. 

On the Friday morning, a young woman and an old 
man, unknown to each other, arrived by the coach from 
Barnstaple. They had come to see the last of their 
friends in this world ; to look, if they might, at the 
shadow left behind by the departing soul. For as the 
shadow of any object remains a moment upon the magic 
curtain of the eye after the object itself has gone, so the 
shadow of the soul, namely, the body, lingers a moment 
upon the earth, after the object itself has gone to the 
K high countries.” It was well to see with what a sober 
sorrow the dignified little old man bore his grief. It 
was as if he felt that the loss of his son was only for a 
moment Bur the young woman had taken on the hue 
of the corpse she came to seek. Her eyes were sunken 
as if with the weight of the light she cared not for, and 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


04 


her cheeks had already pined away as if to be ready for 
the grave. A being thus emptied of its glory seized and 
possessed my thoughts. She never even told us whom 
she came seeking, and after one involuntary question, 
which simply received no answer, I was very careful not 
even to approach another. I do not think the form she 
sought was there ; and she may have gone home with 
the lingering hope, to cast the grey aurora of a doubtful 
dawn over her coming days, that, after all, that one had 
escaped. 

On the Friday afternoon, with tne approbation of the 
magistrate, I had all the bodies removed to the church. 
Some in their coffins, others on stretchers, they were laid 
in front of the communion-rail. In the evening these 
two went to see them. I took care to be present. The 
old man soon found his son. I was at his elbow as he 
walked between the rows of the dead. He turned to 
me and said quietly — 

“ That ’s him, sir. He was a good lad. God rest 
his soul. He ’s with his mother ; and if I ’m sorry, she s 
glad/’ 

With that he smiled, or tried to smile. I could only 
lay my hand on his arm, to let him know that I under- 
stood him, and was with him. He walked out of the 
church, sat down upon a stone, and stared at the mould 
of a new-made grave in front of him. What was passing 
behind those eyes God only knew— certainly the man 
himself did not know. Our lightest thoughts are ol 
more awful significance than the most serious of us can 


THE FUNERAL. 


565 


For the young woman, I thought she left the church 
W'lth a little light in her eyes ; but she had said nothing. 
Alas ! that the body was not there could no more justify 
her than Milton in letting her 

frail thoughts dally with false surmise. 

With him, too, she might well add — 

Ay me ! whilst thee the shores and sounding sea* 

Wash far away. 

But God had them in his teaching, and all I could do 
was to ask them to be my guests till the funeral and the 
following Sunday were over. To this they kindly con- 
sented, and I took them to my wife, who received them 
like herself, and had in a few minutes made them at 
home with her, to which no doubt their sorrow tended, 
for that brings out the relations of humanity and destroys 
its distinctions. 

The next morning a Scotchman of a very decided 
type, originally from Aberdeen, but resident in Liver- 
pool, appeared, seeking the form of his daughter. I 
had arranged that whoever came should be brought to 
me first. I went with him to the church. He was a 
tall, gaunt, bony man, with long arms and huge hands, 
a rugged granite-like face, and a slow ponderous utter- 
ance, which I had some difficulty in understanding. 
He treated the object of his visit with a certain hardness, 
and at the same time lightness, which also I had some 
difficulty in understanding. 

“ You want to see the ” 1 said, and hesitated. 

*Ow ay — the boadies,” he answered. “She winna 


566 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


be there, I daursay, but I wad jist like to see ; for I 
wadna like her to be beeried gin sae be ’at she was 
there, wi’oot biddin’ her good-bye like.” 

When we reached the church, I opened the door and 
entered. An awe fell upon me fresh and new. The 
beautiful church had become a tomb : solemn, grand, 
ancient, it rose as a memorial of the dead who lay in 
peace before her altar-rail, as if they had fled thither for 
sanctuary from a sea of troubles. And I thought with 
myself: will the time ever come when the churches 
shall stand as the tombs of holy things that have passed 
away, when Christ shall have rendered up the kingdom 
to his Father, and no man shall need to teach his neigh- 
bour or his brother, saying, “ Know the Lord ? ” The 
thought passed through my mind and vanished as I led 
my companion up to the dead. 

He glanced at one and another and passed on. He 
had looked at ten or twelve ere he stopped, gazing on 
the face of the beautiful form which had first come ashore. 
He stooped, and stroked the white cheeks, taking the 
dead in his great rough hands, and smoothed the brown 
hair tenderly, saying, as if he had quite forgotten that 
she was dead — 

“ Eh, Maggie ! hoo camy^ here, lass V* 

Then, as if for the first time the reality had grown 
comprehensible, he put his hands before his face, and 
burst into tears. His huge frame was shaken with sobs 
for one long minute, while I stood looking on with awe 
and reverence. He ceased suddenly, pulled a blue cotton 
handkerchief with yellow spots on it — I see it now — from 


THE FUNERAL. 


567 


his pocket, rubbed his face with it as if drying it with a 
towel, put it back, turned, and said, without looking at 
me, “ I ’ll awa’ hame.” 

“ Wouldn’t you like a piece of her hair?” I asked. 

“ Gin ye please,” he answered gently, as if his daugh- 
ter’s form had been mine now, and her hair were mine 
to give. 

By the vestry door sat Mrs Coombes, watching the 
dead, with her sweet solemn smile, and her constant 
ministration of knitting. 

“ Have you got a pair of scissors there, Mre 
Coombes ? ” I asked. 

“ Yes, to be sure, sir,” she answered, rising, and lift* 
ing a huge pair by the string suspending them from her 
waist. 

“ Cut off a nice piece of this beautiful hair,” I said. 

She lifted the lovely head, chose, and cut off a long 
piece, and handed it respectfully to the father. 

He took it without a word, sat down on the step be- 
fore the communion-rail, and began to smooth out the 
wonderful sleave of dusky gold. It was, indeed, beauti- 
ful hair. As he drew it out, I thought it must be a yard 
long. He passed his big fingers through and through 
it, but tenderly, as if it had been still growing on the live 
lovely head, stopping every moment to pick out the bits 
of sea -weed and shells, and shake out the sand that had 
been wrought into its mass. He sat thus for nearly half- 
an-hour, and we stood looking on with something closely 
akin to awe. At length he folded it up, drew from his 
pocket an old black leather book, laid it carefully in the 




568 THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


innermost pocket, and rose. I led the way from the 
church, and he followed me. 

Outside the church, he laid his hand on my arm, 
and said, groping with his other hand in his trowsers- 
pocket — 

“ She ’ll hae putten ye to some expense — for the 
coffin an’ sic like.” 

“ We ’ll talk about that afterwards,” I answered. 
u Come home with me now, and have some refreshment.” 

“Na, I thank ye. I hae putten ye to eneuch o* 
tribble already. I ’ll jist awa’ hame.” 

“ We are going to lay them down this evening. You 
won’t go before the funeral. Indeed, I think you can’t 
get away till Monday morning. My wife and I will be 
glad of your company till then.” 

“ I ’m no company for gentle-fowk, sir.” 

u Come and show me in which of these graves you 
would like to have her laid,” I said. 

He yielded and followed me. 

Coombes had not dug many spadefuls before he saw 
what had been plain enough — that ten such men as he 
could not dig the graves in time. But there was plenty 
of help to be had from the village and the neighbour- 
ing farms. Most of them were now ready, but a good 
many men were still at work. The brown hillocks lay 
about the churchyard — the mole-heaps of burrowing 
Death. 

The stranger looked around him. His face grew 
critical He stepped a little hither and thither. At 
length he turned to me and said— 


THE FUNERAL. 


569 


“I wadna like to be greedy; but gin ye wad lat her 
lie next the kirk there — i’ that neuk — I wad tak’ it kindly. 
And syne gin ever it cam’ aboot that I cam’ here again, I 
wad ken whaur she was. Could ye get a sma’ bit heidstane 
putten up ? I wad leave the siller wi* ye to pay for ’t.” 

“To be sure I can. What will you have put on the 
stone ? ” 

“Ow jist — lat me see — Maggie Jamieson — nae Mar- 
get, but jist Maggie. She was aye Maggie at hame. 
Maggie Jamieson, frae her father. It ’s the last thing 
I can gie her. Maybe ye micht put a verse o’ Scripter 
aneath ’t, ye ken.” 

“ What verse would you like 

He thought for a little. 

“ Isna there a text that says, * The deid shall hear his 
voice * ? ” 

“ Yes : * The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of 
God.”’ 

“Ay. That’s it. Weel jist put that on. — They canna 
do better than hear his voice,” he added, with a strange 
mixture of Scotch ratiocination. 

I led the way home, and he accompanied me without 
further objection or apology. After dinner, I. proposed 
that we should go upon the downs, for the day was warm 
and bright. We sat on the grass. I felt that I could 
not talk to them as from myself. I knew nothing of the 
possible gulfs of sorrow in their hearts. To me their 
forms seemed each like a hill in whose unseen bosom 
lay a cavern of dripping waters, perhaps with a subter- 
ranean torrent of anguish raving through its hollows and 


570 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


tumbling down hidden precipices, whose voice God only 
heard, and God only could still. The daughter mighty 
though from her face I did not think it, have gone 
away against her father’s will. That soi\ might have 
been a ne’er-do-weel at home — how could I tell ? The 
woman might be looking for the lover that had forsaken 
her — I could not divine. I w r ould speak no words of 
my own. The Son of God had spoken words of com- 
fort to his mourning friends, when he was the present 
God and they were the forefront of humanity : I would 
read some of the words he spoke. From them the 
human nature in each would draw what comfort it could, 
I took my New Testament from my pocket, and said, 
without any preamble, 

“ When our Lord was going to die, he knew that his 
friends loved him enough to be very wretched about it, 
He knew that they would be overwhelmed for a time 
with trouble. He knew, too, that they could not believe 
the glad end of it all, to which end he looked, across 
the awful death that awaited him — a death to which that 
of our friends in the wreck was ease itself. I will j-ust 
read to you what he said.” 

I read from the fourteenth to the seventeenth chapter 
of St John’s Gospel. I knew there were worlds of mean- 
ing in the words into which I could hardly hope any of 
them would enter. But I knew likewise that the best 
things are just those from which the humble will draw 
the truth they are capable of seeing. Therefore I read 
as for myself, and left it to them to hear for themselves* 
Nor did I add any word of comment, fearful of darken- 


THE FUNERAL. 


571 


ing counsel by words without knowledge. For the 
Bible is awfully set against what is not wise. 

When I had finished, I closed the book, rose from 
the grass, and walked towards the brow of the shore. 
They rose likewise and followed me. I talked of slight 
things ; the tone was all that communicated between 
us. But little of any so~t was said. The sea lay still 
before us, knowing nothing of the sorrow it had caused. 

We wandered a little way along the cliff. The burial- 
service was at seven o’clock. 

“ I have an invalid to visit out in this direction,” I 
said : “ would you mind walking with me f I shall not 
stay more than five minutes, and we shall get back just 
in time for tea.” 

They assented kindly. I walked first with one, then 
with another ; heard a little of the story of each ; was 
able to say a few words of sympathy, and point, as it 
were, a few times, towards the hills whence cometh our 
aid. I may just mention here, that since our return to 
Marshmallows, I have had two of them, the young woman 
and the Scotchman, to visit us there. 

The bell began to toll, and we went to church. My 
companions placed themselves near the dead. I went 
into the vestry till the appointed hour. I thought, as I 
put on my surplice, how, in all religions but the Christian, 
the dead body was a pollution to the temple. Here the 
Church received it, as a holy thing, for a last embrace 
ere it went to the earth. 

As the dead were already in the church, the usual 
form could not be carried out I therefore stood by 


57 * 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


the communion-table, and there began to read : “I am 
the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord : he that 
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live s 
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never 
die.” 

I advanced as I read, till I came outside the rails, and 
stood before the dead. There I read the Psalm, “ Lord, 
thou hast been our refuge;” and the glorious lesson, 
“Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the 
first-fruits of them that slept.” Then the men of the 
neighbourhood came forward, and in long solemn pro- 
cession bore the bodies out of the church, each to its 
grave. At the church door I stood and read, “ Man 
that is born of a woman ; ” then went from one to an- 
other of the graves, and read over each, as the earth 
fell on the coffin-lid, “ Forasmuch as it hath pleased 
Almighty God of his great mercy.” Then, again, I went 
back to the church door, and read, “ I heard a voice 
from heaven ; ” and so to the end of the service. 

Leaving the men to fill up the graves, I hastened to 
lay aside my canonicals, that I might join my guests. 
But my wife and daughter had already prevailed on 
them to leave the churchyard. 

A word now concerning my own family. Turner in- 
sisted on Connie’s remaining in bed for two or three 
days. She looked worse in face — pale and worn ; but 
it was clear from the way she moved in bed, that the 
fresh power called forth by the shock had not vanished 
with the moment. 

Wynnie was quieter almost than ever. But there was 


THE FUNERAL. 


573 


a constant secret light, if I may use the paradox, in her 
eyes. Percivale was at the house every day, always 
ready to make himself useful. My wife bore up won- 
derfully. As yet the much greater catastrophe had come 
far short of the impression made by the less. When 
quieter hours should come, however, I could not help 
fearing that the place would be dreadfully painful to all 
but the younger ones, who, of course, had the usual 
child-gift of forgetting. The servants, even Walter, 
looked thin and anxious. 

That Saturday night, I found myself, as I had once or 
twice found myself before, entirely unprepared to preach. 
I did not feel anxious, because I did not feel that I was 
to blame : I had been so much occupied. I had again 
and again turned my thoughts thitherward, but nothing 
recommended itself to me so that I could say, “ I must 
take that;” nothing said plainly, “This is what you 
have to speak of.” 

As often as I had sought to find fitting matter for my 
sermon, my mind had turned to death and the grave ; 
but I shrunk from every suggestion, or rather, nothing 
had come to me that interested myself enough to justify 
me in giving it to my people. And I always took it 
as my sole justification in speaking of anything to the 
flock of Christ, that I cared heartily in my own soul 
for that thing. Without this consciousness, I was dumb. 
And I do think, highly as I value prophecy, that a 
clergyman ought to be at liberty upon occasion to say, 
“ My friends, I cannot preach to-day.” What a riddance 
it would be for the Church— I do not say if every priest 


574 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


were to speak sense, but only if every priest were to 
abstain from speaking of that in which, at the moment, 
he feels little or no interest ! 

I went to bed, which is often the very best thing a 
man can do ; for sleep will bring him from God that 
which no effort of his own will can compass. I have 
read somewhere — I will verify it by present search — 
that Luther's translation of the verse in the psalm, 
“ so he giveth to his beloved sleep,” is, “ he giveth 
his beloved sleeping,” or while asleep. Yes, so it is — 
literally, in English, “ It is in vain that ye rise early, 
and then sit long, and eat your bread with care, for 
to his friends he gives it sleeping.” This was my 
experience in the present instance, for the thought of 
which I was first conscious when I awoke was — “ Why 
should I talk about death ? Every man’s heart is now 
full of death. We have enough of that, even the sum 
that God has sent us on the wings of the tempest 
What I have to do, as the minister of the new covenant, 
is to speak of life.” It flashed in on my mind : “ Death 
is over and gone. The resurrection comes next : I will 
speak of the raising of Lazarus.” 

The same moment I knew that I was ready to speak. 
Shall I or shall I not give my reader the substance of 
what I said? I wish I knew how many of them would 
like it, and how many would not. I do not want to 
bore them with sermons, especially seeing I have always 
said that no seimons ought to be printed, for in print 
they are but what the old alchymists would have called 
a caput mortuum , or death’s head, namely, a lifeless lump 


TIIE FUNERAL. 


575 


of residuum at the bottom of the crucible ; for they have 
no longer the living human utterance which gives alJ 
the power on the minds of the hearers. But I have not, 
either in this, or in my preceding narrative, attempted 
to give a sermon as T preached it. I have only sought 
to present the substance of it in a form fitter for being 
read, somewhat cleared of the unavoidable, let me say 
necessary — yes, I will say valuable repetitions and en- 
forcements by which the various considerations are 
pressed upon the minds of the hearers. These are 
entirely wearisome in print — useless too, for the reader 
may ponder over every phrase till he finds out the pur- 
port of it — if indeed there be such readers now-a-days. 

I rose, went down to the bath in the rocks, had a 
joyous physical ablution, and a swim up and down the 
narrow cleft, from which I emerged as if myself newly 
born or raised anew, and then wandered about on the 
downs full of hope and thankfulness, seeking all I could 
to plant deep in my mind the long-rooted truths of 
resurrection, that they might be not only ready to 
blossom in the warmth of the spring-tides to come, but 
able to send out some leaves and promissory buds even 
in the wintry time of the soul, when the fogs of pain 
steam up from the frozen clay soil of the body, and make 
the monarch-will totter dizzily upon his throne, to 
comfort the eyes of the bewildered king, reminding him 
that the King of kings hath conquered Death and the 
Grave. There is no perfect faith that cannot laugh at 
winters and grave-yards, and all the whole array of 
defiant appearances. The fresh breeze of the morning 


$76 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


visited me. “ O God !” I said in my heart, “would that 
when the dark day comes in which I can feel nothing, 
I may be able to front it with the memory of this day’s 
strength, and so help myself to trust in the Father! 
I would call to mind the days of old, with David the 
king.” 

When I returned to the house, I found that one ol 
the sailors who had been cast ashore with his leg broken, 
wished to see me. I obeyed, and found him very pale 
and worn. 

“ 1 think I am going, sir,” he said ; “ and I wanted 
to see you before I die.” 

“ Trust in Christ, and do not be afraid,” I returned. 

“ I prayed to him to save me when I was hanging to 
the rigging, and if I wasn’t afraid then, I ’m not going 
to be afraid now, dying quietly in my bed. But just 
look here, sir.” 

He took from under his pillow something wrapped up 
in paper, unfolded the envelope, and showed a lump of 
something — I could not at first tell what He put it in 
my hand, and then I saw that it was part of a bible, with 
nearly the upper half of it worn or cut away, and the 
rest partly in a state of pulp. 

“ That ’s the bible my mother gave me when I left 
home first,” he said. “ I don’t know how I came to 
put it in my pocket, but I think the rope that cut 
through that when I was lashed to the shrouds would 
a 'most nave cut through my ribs if it hadn’t been 
for it” 

“ Very likely,” I icturned. " The body of the Bible 


THE FUNERAL. 


377 


has saved your bodily life : may the spirit of it save your 
spiritual life.” 

“ I think I know what you mean, sir/’ he panted out. 
“ My mother was a good woman, and I know she prayed 
to God for me. * 

“ Would you like us to pray for you in church to-day?" 

u If you please, sir ; me and Bob Fox. He ’s nearly 
as bad as I am.” 

“ We won’t forget you,” I said. M I will comt in after 
church and see how you are.” 

I knelt and offered the prayers for the sick, and then 
took my leave. I did not think the poor fellow was 
going to die. 

I may as well mention here, that he has been in my 
service ev:r since. We took him with us to Marsh* 
mallows, where he works in the garden and stables, 
and is very useful. We have to look after him though, 
tor his health continues dencace 


CHAPTER XL. 


THE SERMON. 



HEN I stood up to preach, I gave them no 
text, but with the eleventh chapter of the 
Gospel of St. John open before me, to keep 
me correct, I proceeded to tell the siory in 


the words God gave me, for who can daie to say that 
he makes his own commonest speech ? 

‘‘When Jesus Christ the son of God, and therefore our 
elder brother, was going about on the earth, eating and 
drinking with his brothers and sisters, there was one 
family he loved especially — a family of two sisters and 
a brother ; for, although he loves everybody as much as 
they can be loved, there are some who can be loved 
more than others. Only God is always trying to make 
us such that we can be loved more and more. There 
are several stories — oh, such lovely stoiies ! — about that 
family and Jesus. And we have to do with one ot tbnn 


THE SERMON. 


579 


“They lived near the capital of the country, Jerusalem, 
in a village they called Bethany ; and it must have been 
a great relief to our Lord, when he was worn out with the 
obstinacy and pride of the great men of the city, to go 
out to the quiet little town, and into the refuge of Laza- 
rus’s house, where every one was more glad at the sound 
of his feet than at any news that could come to them. 

“They had at this time behaved so ill to him in Jeru- 
salem, taking up stones to stone him even, th-ough they 
dared not quite do it, mad with anger as they were — and 
all because he told them the truth — that he had gone 
away to the other side of the great river that divided the 
country, and taught the people in that quiet place. 
While he was there, his friend Lazarus was taken ill, and 
the two sisters, Martha and Mary, sent a messenger to 
him, to say to him, * Lord, your friend is very ill/ Only 
they said it more beautifully than that : * Lord, behold, 
he whom thou lovest is sick/ You know when any one 
is ill, we always want the person whom he loves most to 
come to him. This is very wonderful. In the worst 
things that can come to us, the first thought is of love. 
People, like the Scribes and Pharisees, might say, ‘ What 
good can that do him ? ’ And we may not in the least 
suppose the person we want knows any secret that can 
cure his pain ; yet love is the first thing we think of. 
And here we are more right than we know; for, at the 
long last, love will cure everything ; which truth, indeed 
this story will set forth to us. No doubt the heart of 
Lazarus, ill as he was, longed after his friend, and. very 
likelp, even the sight of Jesus might have given him such 


THE SEABDARD PARISH. 


5&> 


strength that the life in hirn could have driven out 
the death whic'h had already got one foot across the 
threshold. But the sisters expected more than this. 
They believed that Jesus, whom they knew to have driven 
disease and death out of so many hearts, had only to 
come and touch him — nay, only to speak a word, to look 
at him, and their brother was saved. Do you think they 
presumed in thus expecting 1 The fact was, they did 
not believe enough ; they had not yet learned to believe 
that he could cure him all the same whether he came to 
them or not, because he was always with them. We 
cannot understand this ; but our understanding is never 
a measure of what is true. 

“Whether Jesus knew exactly all that was going to 
take place, I cannot tell Some people may feel certain 
upon points that I dare not feel certain upon. One 
thing I am sure of — that he did not always know every- 
thing beforehand, for he said so himself. It is infinitely 
more valuable to us, because more beautiful and godlike 
in him, that he should trust his Father than that he 
should foresee everything. At all events he knew that 
his Father did not want him to go to his friends yet. 
So he sent them a message to the effect that there was a 
particular reason for this sickness, that the end of it was 
not the death of Lazarus, but the glory of God. This I 
think he told them by the same messenger they sent to 
him ; and then instead of going to them he remained 
where he was. 

“ But oh, my friends, what shall I say about this 
wonderful message 1 Think of being sick for the gloij 


THE SERMON. 


581 


of God ! of being shipwrecked for the glory of God ! of 
being drowned for the glory of God ! How can the 
sickness, the fear, the brokenheartedness of his creatures 
be for the glory of God? What kind of a God can that 
be? Why just a God so perfectly, absolutely good that 
the things that look least like it are only the means of 
clearing our eyes to let us see how good he is. For he 
is so good that he is not satisfied with being good. He 
loves his children so, that except he can make them 
good like himself, make them blessed by seeing how 
good he is, and desiring the same goodness in themsciyes, 
he is not satisfied. He is not like a fine, proud bene 
factor, who is content with doing that which will satisfy 
his sense of his own glory, but like a mother who puts 
her arm round her child, and whose heart is sore till 
she can make her child see the love which is her glory. 
The glorification of the Son of God is the glorification 
of the human race, for the glory of God is the glory of 
man, and that glory is love ! Welcome sickness, wel- 
come sorrow, welcome death, revealing that glory ! 

“ The next two verses sound very strangely together, 
and yet they almost seem typical of all the perplexities 
of God’s dealings. The old painters and poets repre- 
sented Faith as a beautiful woman holding in her hand a 
cup of wine and water, with a serpent coiled up within. 
High-hearted Faith! she scruples not to drink of the 
life-giving wine and water : she. is not repelled by the 
upcoiled serpent The serpent she takes but for the 
type of the eternal wisdom that looks repellent because 
u is not understood. The wine if good, the water is 


582 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


good, and if the hand of the supreme Fate put that cup 
in her hand, the serpent itself must be good too, harm- 
less at least to hurt the truth of the water and the wine. 
But let us read the verses. 

“ * Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and 
Lazarus. When he had heard therefore that he was 
sick, he abode two days still in the same place where 
he was/ 

“ Strange ! his friend was sick : he abode two days 
where he was ! But remember what we have already 
heard. The glory of God was infinitely more for the 
final cure of a dying Lazarus, — who, give him all the life 
he could have, would yet, without that glory, be in 
death, — than the mere presence of the Son of God. I 
say mere presence, for, compared with the glory of God, 
the very presence of his Son, so dissociated, is nothing. 
He abode where he was that the glory of God, the final 
cure of humanity, the love that triumphs over death, 
might shine out and redeem the hearts of men, so that 
death could not touch them. 

“ After the two days, the hour had arrived. He said 
to his disciples, * Let us go back to Judaea/ They ex- 
postulated because of the danger, saying, ‘ Master, the 
Jews cf late sought to stone thee ; and goest thou thither 
again?’ The answer which he gave them I am not 
sure whether I can thoroughly understand, but I think, 
in fact I know it must hear on the same region of life — 
the wiK of God. I think what he means by walking in 
the day, is simply, doing the will of God. That was the 
sole, the all-embracing light in .v'.'ch Jesus ever walked. 


THE SERMON, 


5»1 


I think he means that now he saw plainly what the 
Father wanted him to do. If he did not see that the 
Father wanted him to go back to Judaea, and yet went, 
that would be to go stumblingly, to walk in the dark- 
ness. There are twelve hours in the day — one time to 
act — a time of light and the clear call of duty ; there is 
a night when a man, not seeing where or hearing how, 
must be content to rest. Something not inharmonious 
with this, I think, he must have intended ; but I do not 
see the whole thought clearly enough to be sure that I 
am right. I do think further that it points at a clearer 
condition of human vision and conviction than I am 
good enough to understand ; though I hope one day to 
rise into this upper stratum of light. 

“ Whether his scholars had heard anything of Lazarus 
yet I do not know. It looks a little as if Jesus had 
not told them the message he had had from the sisters. 
But he told them now that he was asleep, and that he 
was going to wake him. You would think they might 
have understood this. The idea of going so many miles 
to wake a man might have surely suggested death. But 
the disciples were sorely perplexed with many of his 
words. Sometimes they looked far away for the mean- 
ing when the meaning lay in their very hearts ; some- 
times they looked into their hands for it when it was 
lost in the grandeur of the ages. But he meant them 
to see into all that he said by and by, although they 
could not see into it now. When they understood him 
better, then they would understand what he said better. 
And to understand him better, they must be more iik . 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


S&4 


him, and to make them more like him he must go away 
and give them his spirit — awful mystery which no man 
but himself can understand. 

u Now he had to tell them plainly that Lazarus was 
dead. They had not thought of death as a sleep. I 
suppose this was altogether a new and Christian idea. 
Do not suppose that it applied more to Lazarus than to 
other dead people. He was none the less dead that 
Jesus meant to take a weary two days* journey to his 
sepulchre and wake him. If death is not a sleep, Jesus 
oid not speak the truth when he said Lazarus slept. 
You may say it was a figure ; but a figure that is not like 
the thing it figures is simply a lie. 

“They set out to go back to Judaea. Here we have 
a glimpse of the faith of Thomas, the doubter. For a 
doubter is not without faith. The very fact that he 
doubts, shows that he has some faith. When I find 
any one hard upon doubters, I always doubt the quality 
of his faith. It is of little use to have a great cable, if 
the hemp is so poor that it breaks like the painter of a 
boat. I have known people whose power of believing 
chiefly consisted in their incapacity for seeing difficulties. 
Of what fine sort a faith must be that is founded in 
stupidity, or far worse, in indifference to the truth and 
the mere desire to get out of hell ! That is nofc a grand 
belief in the Son of God, the radiation of the Father. 
Thomas’s want of faith was shown in the grumbling, 
self-pitying way in which he said, ‘ Let us also go that 
we may die with him.* His Master had said that he waa 
going to wake him. Thomas said, ‘that we may die 


THE SERMON. 


5«5 


with him.* You may say, * he did not understand him/ 
True, it may be, but his unbelief was the cause of his 
not understanding him. I suppose Thomas meant this 
as a reproach to Jesus for putting them all in danger by 
going back to Judaea ; if not, it was only a poor piece 
of sentimentality. So much for Thomas’s unbelief. But 
he had good and true faith notwithstanding ; for he went 
with his Master . 

“By the time they reached the neighbourhood of 
Bethany, Lazarus had been dead four days. Some one 
ram to the house and told the sisters that Jesus was 
coming. Martha, as soon as she heard it, rose and 
went to meet him. It might be interesting at another 
time to compare the difference of the behaviour of the 
two sisters upon this occasion with the difference of 
their behaviour upon another occasion likewise recorded ; 
but with the man dead in his sepulchre, and the hope 
dead in these two hearts, we have no inclination to enter 
upon fine distinctions of character. Death and grief 
bring out the great family likenesses in the living as well 
as in the dead. 

“ When Martha came to Jesus, she showed her true 
though imperfect faith by almost attributing her brother’s 
death to Jesus’ absence. But even in the moment, look- 
ing in the face of the Master, a fresh hope, a new bud- 
ding of faith began in her soul. She thought — ‘ what if, 
after all, he were to bring him to life again ! * Oh, trust- 
ing heart, how thou leavest the dull-plodding intellect 
behind thee I While the conceited intellect is reasoning 
upon the impossibility of die thing, the expectant faith 


5*6 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


beholds it accomplished. Jesus, responding instantly to 
her faith, granting her half-born prayer, says, ‘ Thy brother 
shall rise again ; ’ not meaning the general truth recog- 
nized, or at least assented to by all but the Sadducees* 
concerning the final resurrection of the dead, but mean- 
ing, * Be it unto thee as thou wilt. I will raise him 
again.’ For there is no steering for a fine effect in the 
words of Jesus. But these words are too good for 
Martha to take them as he meant them. Her faith is 
not quite equal to the belief that he actually will do it 
The thing she could hope for afar off she could hardly be- 
lieve when it came to her very door. * Oh yes,’ she said, 
her mood falling again to the level of the commonplace, 
* of course, at the last day.’ Then the Lord turns away 
her thoughts from the dogmas of her faith to himself 
the Life, saying, * I am the resurrection and the life : he 
that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall 
never die. Believest thou this 1 ’ Martha, without under- 
standing what he said more than in a very poor part, 
answered in words which preserved her honesty entire 
and yet included all he asked, and a thousandfold more 
than she could yet believe : ‘Yea, Lord ; I believe that 
thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come 
into the world.’ 

“ I dare not pretend to have more than a grand glim- 
mering of the truth of Jesus’ words, * shall never die * ; 
but I am pretty sure that when Martha came to die, she 
found that there was indeed no such thing as she had 
meant when she used the ghastly word deaths and said 


THE SERMON. 


5»7 


with her first new breath, * Verily, Lord, I am not 
dead.’ 

“ But look how this declaration of her confidence in the 
Christ operated upon herself. She instantly thought of 
her sister ; the hope that the Lord would do something 
swelled within her, and, leaving Jesus, she went to find 
Mary. Whoever has had a true word with the elder 
brother, straightway will look around him to find his 
brother, his sister. The family feeling blossoms : he 
wants his friend to share the glory withal Martha wants 
Mary to go to Jesus too. 

u Mary heard her, forgot her visitors, rose, and went 
They thought she went to the grave : she went to meet 
its conqueror. But when she came to him, the woman 
who had chosen the good part praised of Jesus, had but 
the same words to embody her hope and her grief that 
her careful and troubled sister had uttered a few minutes 
before. How often during those four days had not the 
self-same words passed between them ! ‘ Ah, if he had 
been here, our brother had not died ! 9 She said so to 
himself now, and wept, and her friends who had followed 
her wept likewise. A moment more, and the Master 
groaned ; yet a moment, and he too wept. ‘ Sorrow is 
catching ; * but this was not the mere infection of sorrow. 
It went deeper than mere sympathy ; for he groaned in 
his spirit and was troubled. What made him weep 1 It 
was when he saw them weeping that he wept. But why 
should he weep, when he knew how coon their weeping 
would be turned into rejoicing? It was not for theii 
weeping, so soon to be over, that he wept, but fcr tin 


$S8 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


human heart everywhere swollen with tears, yea, with 
griefs that can find no such relief as tears ; for these, and 
for all his brothers and sisters tormented with pain for 
lack of faith in his Father in heaven, Jesus wept. He 
saw the blessed well-being of Lazarus on the one side, 
and on the other the streaming eyes from whose sight 
he had vanished. The veil between was so thin I yet 
the sight of those eyes could not pierce it : their hearts 
must go on weeping — without cause, for his Father was 
bo good. I think it was the helplessness he felt in the 
impossibility of at once sweeping away the phantasm 
death from their imagination that drew the tears from 
the eyes of Jesus. Certainly it was not for Lazarus; it 
could hardly be for these his friends — save as they repre- 
sented the humanity which he would help, but could not 
help even as he was about to help them. 

“The Jews saw herein proof that he loved Lazarus; 
but they little thought it was for them and their people, 
and for the Gentiles whom they despised, that his tears 
were now flowing — that the love which pressed the 
fountains of his weeping was love for every human heart, 
from Adam on through the ages. 

“ Some of them went a little further, nearly as far as 
the sisters, saying, ‘Could he not have kept the man 
from dying?' But it was such a poor thing, after all, 
that they thought he might have done. They regarded 
merely this unexpected illness, this early death ; for I 
daresay Lazarus was not much older than Jesus. They 
did not think that, after all, Lazarus must die some time; 
that the beloved could be saved, at best, only for a little 


THE SERMON. 


589 


while. Jesus seems to have heard the remark, for he 
again gToaned in himself. 

“ Meantime they were drawing near the place where 
he was buried. It was a hollow in the face of a rock, 
with a stone laid against it. I suppose the bodies were 
laid on something like shelves inside the rock, as they 
are in many sepulchres. They were not put into coffins* 
but wound round and round with linen. 

“ When they came before the door of death, Jesus 
said to them, * Take away the stone.* The nature of 
Martha’s reply, the realism of it, as they would say now- 
adays, would seem to indicate that her dawning faith 
had sunk again below the horizon ; that in the presence 
of the insignia of death, her faith yielded, even as the 
faith of Peter failed him when he saw around him the 
grandeur of the high-priest, and his master bound and 
helpless. Jesus answered — oh, what an answer ! — To 
meet the corruption and the stink which filled her poor 
human fancy, ‘ the glory of God ’ came from his lips : 
human fear ; horror speaking from the lips of a woman 
in the very jaws of the devouring death; and the ‘said 
I not unto thee? ’ from the mouth of him who was so 
soon to pass worn and bloodless through such a door ! 
* He stinketh,’ said Martha. ‘ The glory of God/ said 
Jesus. * Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest be- 
lieve, thou shouldest see the glory of God?* 

“ Before the open throat of the sepulchre Jesus began 
to speak to his Father aloud. He had prayed to him 
in his heart before — most likely while he groaned in hia 
spirit. Now he thanked him that he had comforted him| 


590 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


and given him Lazarus as a first-fruit trom the dead 
But he will be true to the listening people as well as to 
his ever-hearing Father, therefore he tells why he said 
the word of thanks aloud — a thing not usual with him, for 
his father was always hearing him. Having spoken it for 
the people, he would say that it was for the people. 

“ The end of it all was that they might believe that God 
had sent him — a far grander gift than having the dearest 
brought back from the grave — for he is the Life of men. 

“ ‘ Lazarus come forth/ ” 

“ And Lazarus came forth, creeping helplessly, with 
inch-long steps of his linen-bound limbs. ‘ Ha ! Ha 1 
brother ! sister ! * cries the human heart. The Lord of 
Life hath taken the prey from the spoiler ! he hath 
emptied the grave ! Here comes the dead man, wel- 
come as never was child from the womb— new-born — 
and in him all the human race new-born from the grave 

“ ‘Loose him and let him go,’ and the work is done. 
The sorrow is over, and the joy is come. Home, home, 
Martha, Mary, with your Lazarus ! He too will go with 
you, the Lord of the Living. Home, and get the feast 
ready, Martha ! Prepare the food for him who comes 
hungry from the grave, for him who has called him 
thence. Home, Mary, to help Martha ! What a house- 
hold yours will be ! What wondrous speech will pass be- 
tween the dead come to life, and the living come to die ! 

“But what pang is this that makes Lazarus draw 
hurried breath, and turns Martha’s cheeks so white 1 
Ahl at the little window of the heart, the ^.ale eyes of 
the defeated Horror look in. What ! is he there still 3 


THB SERMON 


59 * 


Ah, yes, he will come for Martha, come for Mary, come 
yet again for Lazarus — yea, come for the Lord of Life 
himself, and carry all away. But look at the Lord. He 
knows all about it, and he smiles. Does Martha think of 
the words he spoke, ‘ He that liveth and believeth in me 
shall never die V Perhaps she does, and like the moon 
before the sun, her face returns the smile of her Lord. 

“ This, my friends, is a fancy in form, but it embodies 
a dear truth. What is it to you and me that he raised 
Lazarus ? We are not called upon to believe that he 
will raise from the tomb that joy of our hearts which lies 
buried there beyond our sight. Stop. Are we not ? We 
are called upon to believe this. Else the whole story 
were for us a poor mockery. What is it to us that the 
Lord raised Lazarus ? — Is it nothing to know that o\ir 
Brother is Lord over the grave? Will the harvest be 
behind the first-fruits ? If he tells us he cannot, for good 
reasons, raise up our vanished love to-day, or to-morrow, 
or for all the yearn of our life to come, shall we not 
mingle the smile of faithful thanks with the sorrow of 
present loss, and walk diligently waiting? That he 
called forth Lazarus showed that he was in his keeping, 
that he is lord of the living, and that all live to him — 
that he has a hold of them, and can draw them forth 
when he will. If this is not true, then the raising of 
Lazarus is false — I do not mean merely false in fact, but 
false in meaning. If we believe in him, then in hia 
name, both for ourselves and for our friends, we must 
deny death and believe in life. Lord Christ, fill oui 
hearts with thy life.’* 


CHAPTER XLT. 

CHANGED PLAN'S. 

a day or two Connie was permitted to ris* 
and take to her couch once more. It seemed 
strange that she should look so much worse, 
and yet be so much stronger. The growth 
of her power of motion was wonderful. As they carried 
her, she begged to be allowed to put her feet to the 
ground. Turner yielded, though without quite ceasing 
to support her. He was satisfied, however, that she 
could have stood upright for a moment at least He 
would not, of course, risk it, and made haste to lay her 
down. 

The time of his departure was coming near, and he 
seemed more anxious the nearer it came. For Connie 
continued worn-looking and pale, and her smile, though 
ever ready to greet me when I entered, had lost much oi 
its light. I noticed, too, that she had the curtain of hex 
window constantly so arranged as to shut out the sea* 



CHANGED PLANS. 


593 


I said something to her about it once. Her reply 

was — 

“ Papa, I can’t bear it. I know it is very silly ; but I 
think I can make you understand how it is. I was so 
fond of the sea when I came down. It seemed to lie 
close to my window, with a friendly smile ready for me 
every morning when .1 looked out. I dare say it is all 
from want of faith, but I can’t help it : it looks so far 
away now, like a friend that had failed me, that I would 
rather not see it” 

I saw that the struggling life within her was grievously 
oppressed ; that the things which surrounded her were 
no longer helpful. Her life had been driven as to its 
innermost cave, and now when it had been enticed to 
venture forth and look abroad, a sudden pall had de- 
scended upon Nature. I could not help thinking that 
the good of our visit to Kilkhaven had come, and that 
evil, from which I hoped we might escape, was following 
I left her, and sought Turner. 

“ It strikes me, Turner,” I said, “ that the sooner we 
get out of this the better for Connie.” 

“ I am quite of your opinion. I think the very pro- 
spect of leaving the place would do something to restore 
her. If she is so uncomfortable now, think what it will 
be in the many winter nights at hand.” 

“Do you think it would be safe to move her?* 

“ Far safer than to let her remain. At the worst, she 
is now far better than w 7 hen she came. Try her. Hint 
at the possibility of going home, and see how she w T ill 
take it” 


594 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“ Web, I shan’t like to be left alone, but if she goes, 
they must all go, except, perhaps, I might keep Wynnie. 
But I don’t know how her mother would get on without 
her.” 

“ I don’t see why you should stay behind. Mr Weir 
would be as glad to come as you would be to go, and it 
can make no difference to Mr Shepherd.” 

It seemed a very sensible suggestion. I thought a 
moment. Certainly it was a desirable thing for both my 
sister and her husband. They had no such reasons as we 
had for disliking the place, and it would enable her to 
avoid the severity of yet another winter. I said as much 
to Turner, and went back to Connie’s room. 

The light of a lovely sunset was lying outside her 
window. She was sitting so that she could not see it. 
I would find out her feeling in the matter without any 
preamble. 

“ Would you like to go back to Marshmallow^ 
Connie?” I asked. 

Her countenance flashed into light 

“ Oh ! dear papa ! do let us go,” she said. u That 
would be delightful.” 

“ Well, I think we can manage it, if you will only get 
a little stronger for the journey. The weather is not so 
good to travel in as when we came down.” 

“ No. But I am ever so much better, you know, than 
1 was then.” 

The poor girl was already stronger from the mere pro- 
spect of going home again. She moved restlessly on 
her couch, half mechanically put her hand to the curtain 


CHANGED PLANS. 


595 


pulled it aside, looked out, faced the sun and the sea, and 
did not draw back. My mind was made up. I left her 
and went to find Ethelwyn. She heartily approved of the 
proposal for Connie's sake, and said that i't would be 
scarcely less agreeable to herself. I could see a certain 
troubled look above her eyes, however. 

“You are thinking of Wynnie,” I said. 

“ Yes. It is hard to make one sad for the sake of the 
rest.” 

“ True. But it is one of the world’s recognized neces 
sities.” 

“No doubt.* 

“ Besides, you don't suppose Percivale can stay here 
the whole winter. They must part some time.” 

“ Of course. Only they did not expect it so soon.” 

But here my wife was mistaken. 

I went to my study to write to Weir. I had haidly 
finished my letter when Walter came to say that Mr 
Percivale wished to see me. I told him to show him 
in. 

“ I am just writing home to say that I want my 
curate to change places with me here, which I know he 
will be glad enough to do. I see Connie had better go 
home.” 

“You will all go then, I presume,” returned Perci- 
vale. 

“ Yes, yes ; of course.” 

“Then I need not so much regret that I can stay f 
no longer. I came to tell you that I must leave tw- 


morrow. 


59 6 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


“Ah ! Going to London ?” I said interrogatively. 

“ Yes. I don’t know how to thank you for all youi 
kindness. You have made my summer something like 
a summer — very different indeed from what it would 
otherwise have been.” 

“We have had our share of advantage, and that u 
large one. We are all glad to have made your acquaint- 
ance, Mr Percivale.” 

He made no answer. 

“ We shall be passing through London within a week 
•r ten days in all probability. Perhaps you will allow 
us the pleasure of looking at some of your pictures 
then?” 

His face flushed. What did the flush mean ? It was 
not one of mere pleasure. There was confusion and 
perplexity in it. But he answered at once : 

“ I will show you them with pleasure. I fear, how 
ever, you will not care for them.” 

Would this fear account for his embarrassment? I 
hardly thought it would, but I could not for a moment 
imagine, with his fine form and countenance before me, 
that he had any serious reason for shrinking from a 
visit 

He began to search for a card. 

“ Oh, I have your address. I shall be sure to pay 
you a visit. But you will dine with us to-day, of course ? " 
I said. 

“ I shall have much pleasure,” he answered, and took 
} if. leave. 

I finished my letter to Weir, and went out for a walk. 


CHANGED PLANS. 


597 


I remember particularly the thoughts that moved in 
me and made that walk memorable. Indeed, I think I 
remember all outside events chiefly by virtue of the in- 
ward conditions with which they were associated. Mere 
outside things I am very ready to forget : moods of my 
own mind do not so readily pass away, and with the 
memory of some of them every outward circumstance 
returns. For a man’s life is where the kingdom of 
heaven is — within him. There are people who, if you 
ask the story of their lives, have nothing to tell you but 
the course of the outward events that have constituted, 
as it were, the clothes of their history. But I know, at 
the same time, that some of the most important crises in 
my own history, by which word history I mean my 
growth towards the right conditions of existence, have 
been beyond the grasp and interpretation of my intellect: 
they have passed, as it were, without my consciousness 
being awake enough to lay hold of their phenomena ; 
the wind had been blowing : I had heard the sound of 
it but knew not whence it came nor whither it went ; 
only when it was gone, I found myself more responsible, 
more eager than before. 

I remember ihis walk from the thoughts I had about 
the greac change hanging over us all I had now arrived 
at the prime of middle life, and that change which so 
many would escape if they couid, but which will let no 
man pass, had begun tc show itself a real fact upon the 
horizon of the future. Death looks so tar away to the 
young, that while they acknowledge it unavoidable, the 
path stretches in such vanishing perspective before them. 


39 * 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


that they see no necessity for thinking about the end of 
it yet ; and far would I be from saying they ought to 
think of it. Life is the true object of a man’s care : 
there is no occasion to make himself think about death. 
But when the vision of the inevitable draws nigh, when 
it appears plainly on the horizon, though but as a cloud 
the size of a man's hand, tiien it is equally foolish to 
meet it by refusing to meet it, to answer the questions 
that will arise by declining to think about them. Indeed, 
it is a question of life then, and not of death. We want 
to keep fast hold of our life, and, in the strength of that, 
to look th« threatening death in the face. But to my 
walk that morning. 

I wandered on the downs till I came to the place where 
a solitary lock stands on the top of a cliff looking sea- 
ward, in the suggested shape of a monk praying. On 
the base on which he knelt, I seated myself, and looked 
out over the Atlantic. How faded the ocean appeared ! 
It seemed as if all the sunny dyes of the summer had 
been diluted and washed with the fogs of the coming 
winter, when I thought of the splendour it wore when 
first from these downs I gazed on the outspread infinitude 
of space and colour. 

“What,” I said to myself, at length, “has she done 
since then? Where is her work visible ? She has riven, 
and battered, and destroyed, and her destruction too has 
passed away. So worketh Time and its powers. The 
exultation of my youth is gone ; my head is gray ; my 
wife is growing old ; our children are pushing us from our 
tfools ; we are yielding to the new generation ; the glory 


CHANGED PLANS. 


599 


for us Lath departed ; our life lies weary before us like 
that sea, and the night cometh when we can no longer 
work.” 

Something like this was passing vaguely through my 
mind. I sat in a mournful stupor, with a half-conscious 
ness that my mood was false and that I ought to rouse 
myself and shake it off. There is such a thing as a state 
of moral dreaming, which closely resembles the intel- 
lectual dreaming in sleep, I went on in this false dream- 
ful mood, pitying myself like a child tender over his hurt 
and nursing his own cowardice, till, all at once, “ a little 
pipling wind,” blew on my cheek. The morning was very 
still : what roused that little wind, I cannot tell ; but 
what that little wind roused, I will try to tell. With that 
breath on my cheek, something within me began to stir. 
Ic grew and grew until the memory of a certain gloiious 
sunset of red and green and gold and blue, which I had 
beheld from these same heights, dawned within me. I 
knew that the glory of my youth had not departed, that 
the very power of recalling with delight that which I had 
once felt in seeing, was proof enough of that ; I knew 
that I could believe in God all the night long even if the 
night were long. And the next moment I thought how 
I had been reviling in my fancy God’s servant, the sea. 
To how many vessels had she not opened a bounteous 
highway through the waters, with labour, and food, and 
help, and ministration, glad breezes and swelling sails, 
healthful struggle, cleansing fear and sorrow, yea and 
friendly death ! Because she had been commissioned to 
carry this one or that one. this hundred or that thousand 


6oo 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


of his own creatures from one world to another, was I to 
revile the servant of a grand and gracious Master? It 
was blameless in Connie to feel the late trouble so deeply 
that she could not be glad : she had not had the experi- 
ence of life, yea, of God, that I had had ; she must be 
helped from without. But for me, it was shameful that 
I, who knew the heart of my Master, to whom at least 
he had so often shown his truth, should ever be doleful 
and oppressed. Yet even me he had now helped from 
within. The glory of existence as the child of the Infi- 
nite had again dawned upon me. The first hour of the 
evening of my life had, indeed, arrived ; the shadows had 
begun to grow long, so long that I had begun to mark 
their length ; this last little portion of my history had 
vanished, leaving its few grey ashes behind in the crucible 
of my life ; and the final evening must come, when all 
my life would lie behind me, and all the memory of it 
return, with its mornings of gold and red, with its evenings 
of purple and green ; with its dashes of storm, and its 
foggy glooms ; with its white-winged aspirations, its dull- 
ted passions, its creeping envies in brown and black and 
earthy yellow. But from all the accusations of my con- 
science, I would turn me to the Lord, for he was called 
Jesus because he should save his people from their sins. 
Then I thought what a grand gift it would be to give his 
people the power hereafter to fight the consequences of 
their sins. Anyhow, I would trust the Father, who loved 
me with a perfect love, to lead the soul he had made, 
had compelled to be, through the gates of the death-birih, 
into the light of life beyond. I would cast on him the 


CHANGED PLANS. 


6oi 


care, humbly challenge him with the responsibility he 
had himself undertaken, praying only for perfect confi- 
dence in him, absolute submission to his will. 

I rose from my seat beside the praying monk and 
walked on. The thought of seeing my own people 
again filled me with gladness. I would leave those I 
had here learned to love with regret; but I trusted I 
had taught them something, and they had taught me 
much ; therefore there could be no end to our relation 
to each other — it could not be broken, for it was in the 
Lord, which alone can give security to any tie. I should 
not, therefore, sorrow as if I were to see their faces no 
more. 

I now took my farewell of that sea and those clifis. 
I should see them often ere we went, but I should not 
feel so near them again. Even this parting said that I 
must " sit loose to the world.” — an old Puritan phrase. 
I suppose ; tnat 1 could gather up only its uses, treasure 
its best things, and must let all the rest go ; that those 
things I called mine, earth, sky, and sea, home, books, 
the treasured gifts of friends, had all to leave me, belong 
to others, and help to educate them. I should not need 
them. I should have my people, my souls, my beloved 
faces tenfold more, and could well afford to part with 
these. Why should I mind this chain passing to my 
eldest boy, when it was only his mothers hair, and 1 
should have his mother still ? 

So my thoughts went on thinking themselves, until at 
length I yielded passively to their flow. 

I found Wynnie looking very grave when I went into 


602 


THE SEABOARD PARISH 


the drawing-room. Her mother was there too, and Mp 
P ercivale. It seemed rather a moody party. They 
Wakened up a little, however, after I entered, and before 
dinner was over, we were all chatting together merrily. 

“How is Connie?” I asked Ethelwyn. 

“ Wonderfully better already,” she answered. 

“ I think everybody seems better,” I said. “ The very 
idea of home seems reviving to us all.” 

Wynnie darted a quick glance at me, caught my eyes, 
which was more than she had intended, and blushed ; 
sought refuge in a bewildered glance at Percivale, caught 
his eyes in turn, and blushed yet deeper. He plunged 
instantly into conversation, not without a certain invol- 
untary sparkle in those eyes. 

“Did you go to see Mrs Stokes this morning?” he 
asked. 

“ No,” I answered. “ She does not want much visit- 
ing now; she is going about her work, apparently in 
good health. Her husband says she is not like the same 
woman ; and I hope he means that in more senses than 
one, though I do not choose to ask him any questions 
about his wife.” 

I did my best to keep up the conversation, but every 
now and then after this it fell like a wind that would not 
blow. I withdrew to my study. Percivale and Wynnie 
went out for a walk. The next morning he left by the 
coach — early. Turner went with him. 

Wynnie did not seem very much dejected. I thought 
that perhaps the prospect of meeting him again in 
London kept her up. 


CHAPTER XLII. 


THE STUDIO. 

WILL not linger over our preparations or out 
leave-takings. The most ponderous of the 
former were those of the two boys, wio, 
as they had wanted to bring down a chest 
as big as a corn-bin, full of lumber, now wanted to 
take home two or three boxes filled with pebbles, great 
oyster-shells, and sea-weed. 

Weir, as I had expected, was quite pleased to make 
the exchange. An early day had been fixed for his 
arrival ; for I thought it might be of service to him to be 
introduced to the field of his labours. Before he came, 
I had gone about among the people, explaining to them 
some of my reasons for leaving them sooner than I had 
intended, and telling them a little about my successor, 
♦hat he might not appear among them quite as a stran- 
ger. He was much gratified by their reception of him, 
and Jiad r.o fear of not finding himself quite at home with 



THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


S04 


.hem. I promised, if I could comfortably manage it, t« 
s>ay them a short visit the following summer, and, as the 
weather was now getting quite cold, hastened our pre- 
parations for departure. 

I could have wished that Turner had been with us on 
the journey, but he had been absent from his cure to the 
full extent that his conscience would permit, and I had 
not urged him. He would be there to receive us, and 
we had got so used to the management of Connie, that 
we did not feel much anxiety about the travelling. We 
resolved, if she seemed stiong enough as we went along, 
to go right through London, making a few days there the 
only break in the transit. 

It was a bright cold morning when we started. But 
Connie could now bear the air so well, that we set out 
with the carriage open, nor had we occasion to close it 
The first part of our railway journey was very pleasant 
But when we drew near London, we entered a thick fog, 
and before we arrived, a small dense November, rain was 
falling. Connie looked a little dispirited, partly from 
weariness, but no doubt from the change in the weather. 

“Not very cheerful, this, Connie, my dear,” I said. 

“ No, papa,” she answered ; “ but we are going home, 
you know.” 

Going home. It set me thinking — as I had often been 
set thinking before, always with fresh discovery and a 
new colour on the dawning sky of hope. I lay back in. 
the carriage and thought how the November fog this 
evening in London, was the valley of the shadow o i 
death we had to go through on the way home. A shadow 


THE STUDIO. 




like this would fall upon me ; the world would grow dark 
and life grow weary; but I should know it was the last 
of the way home. 

Then I began to question myself wherein the idea of 
this home consisted. I knew that my soul had ever yet 
felt the discomfort of strangeness, more or less, in the 
midst of its greatest blessedness. I knew that as the 
thought of water to the thirsty soul, for it is the soul far 
more than the body that thirsts even for the material 
water, such is the thought of home to the wanderer in a 
strange country. As the weary soul pines for sleep, and 
every heart for the cure of its own bitterness, so my heart 
and soul had often pined for their home. Did I know, 
I asked myself, where or what that home was 1 It could 
consist in no change of place or of circumstance ; no 
mere absence of care ; no accumulation of repose ; no 
blessed communion even with those whom my soul 
loved : in the midst of it all I should be longing for a 
homelier home — one into which I might enter with a 
sense of infinitely more absolute peace than a conscious 
child could know in the arms, upon the bosom of his 
mother. In the closest contact of human soul with 
human soul, when all the atmosphere of thought was 
rosy with love, again and yet again on the far horizon 
would the dim, lurid flame of unrest shoot for a moment 
through the enchanted air, and Psyche would know that 
not yet had she reached her home. As I thought this I 
lifted my eyes, and saw those of my wife and Connie 
fixed on mine, as if they were reproaching me for saying 
in my soul that I could not be quite at home with them 


6o6 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


Then I said in my heart, “ Come home with me, beloved 
— there is but one home for us all. When we find — in 
proportion as each of us finds — that home, shall we be 
gardens of delight to each other — little chambers of rest 
— galleries of pictures — wells of water.” 

Again, what was this home? God himself. His 
thoughts, his will, his love, his judgments, are man’s 
home. To think his thoughts, to choose his will, to 
love his loves, to judge his judgments, and thus to know 
that he is in us, with us, is to be at home. And to pass 
through the valley of the shadow of death is the way 
home, but only thus, that as all changes have hitherto 
led us nearer to this home, the knowledge of God, so 
this greatest of all outward changes — for it is but an 
outward change — will surely usher us into a region where 
there will be fresh possibilities of drawing nigh in heart, 
soul, and mind to the Father of us. It is the father, 
the mother, that make for the child his home. Indeed. 
I doubt if the home-idea is complete to the parents of a 
family themselves when they remember that their fathers 
and mothers have vanished. 

At this point something rose in me seeking utter- 
ance. 

“Won’t it be delightful, wife,” I began, “to see our 
fathers and mothers such a long way back in heaven ? ” 

But Ethelwyn’s face gave so little response, that I felt 
at once how dreadful a thing it was not to have had a 
good father or mother. I do not know what would 
have become of me but for a good father. I wonder 
how anybody ever car be good that has not had a good 


THE STUDIO. 


607 


father. How dreadful not to be a good father or good 
mother ! Every father who is not good, every mother 
who is not good, just makes it as impossible to believe 
in God as it can be made. But he is our one good 
Father, and does not leave us, even should our fathers 
and mothers have thus forsaken us, and left him without 
a witness. 

Here the evil odour of brick-burning invaded my 
nostrils, and I knew that London was about us. A few 
moments after, we reached the station, where a carriage 
was waiting to take us to our hotel. 

Dreary was the change from the stillness and sunshine 
of Kilkhaven to the fog and noise of London; but 
Connie slept better that night than she had slept for a 
good many nights before. 

After breakfast the next morning, 1 said to Wynnie, 

“ I am going to see Mr Percivale’s studio, my dear : 
have you any objection to going with me?” 

“ No, papa,” she answered blushing. “ I have never 
seen an artist’s studio in my life.” 

, “ Come along then. Get your bonnet at once. It 
rains, but we shall take a cab, and it won’t matter.” 

She ran off, and was ready in a few minutes. We gave 
the driver directions, and set out. It was a long drive. 
At length he stopped at the door of a very common-look- 
ing house, in a very dreary-looking street, in which no 
man could possibly identify his own door except by the 
number. I knocked. A woman who looked at once 
dirty and cross, the former probably the cause of the 
latter, opened the door, gave a bare assent to my quel* 


6o8 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


tion whether Mr Percivale was at home, withdrew to her 
den with the words “ second-floor,” and left us to find 
our own way up the two flights of stairs. This, however, 
involved no great difficulty. We knocked at the door of 
the front-room. A well-known voice cried, “ Come in," 
and we entered. 

Percivale, in a short velvet coat, with his palette o^ 
his thumb, advanced to meet us cordially. His face wore 
a slight flush, which I attributed solely to pleasure, and 
nothing to any awkwardness in receiving us in such 3 
poor place as he occupied. I cast my eyes round the 
room. Any romantic notions Wynnie might have in- 
dulged concerning the marvels of a studio, must have 
paled considerably at the first glance around Percivale’s 
room — plainly the abode if not of poverty, then of self- 
denial, although I suspected both. A common room, 
with no carpet save a square in front of the fire-place ; 
no curtains except a piece of something like drugget 
nailed flat across all the lower half of the window to 
make the light fall from upwards ; two or three horse- 
hair chairs, nearly worn out ; a table in a corner, littered 
with books and papers; a horrible lay-figure, at the 
pi esent moment dressed apparently for a scarecrow; a 
iarge easel, on which stood a half-finished oil-painting — 
these constituted almost the whole furniture of the room. 
With his pocket-handkerchief Percivale dusted one chaii 
for Wynnie and another for me. Then standing before 
us, he said : 

“ This is a very shabby place to receive you in, Miss 
Walton, but it is all I have got.” 


THE STUDIO. 


609 


“ A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the 
things he possesses/’ I ventured to say. 

“ Thank you,” said Percivale. “I hope not It is 
well for me it should not.” 

“ It is well for the richest man in England that it 
should not/’ I returned. “ If it were not so, the man 
who could eat most would be the most blessed.” 

“There are people, even of my acquaintance, how- 
ever, who seem to think it does.” 

“ No doubt ; but happily their thinking so will not 
make it so even for themselves.” 

“ Have you been very busy since you left us, Mt 
3‘ercivale?” asked Wynnie. 

“Tolerably,” he answered. “But I have not much to 
show for it. That on the easel is all. I hardly like to 
let you look at it, though.” 

“Why?” asked Wynnie. 

“ First, because the subject is painful. Next, because 
it is so unfinished that none but a painter could do it 
justice.” 

“ But why should you paint subjects you do not like 
people to look at?” 

“ I very much want people to look at them.*' 

“Why not us, then?” said Wynnie. 

“ Because you do not need to be pained.” 

“ Are you sure it is good for you to pain anybody I"* 

T said. 

“ Good is done by pain — is it not?” he asked. 

“ Undoubtedly. But whether we are wise enough to 
know when and where and how much is the question.* 

* Q 


6io 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


u Of course I do not make the pain my object” 

“ If it comes only as a necessary accompaniment, 
that may alter the matter greatly,” I said. “ But still I 
am not sure that anything in which the pain predomi- 
nates can be useful in the best way.” 

“ Perhaps not,” he returned. — “ Will you look at the 
daub?” 

“With much pleasure,” I replied, and we rose and 
stood before the easel. Percivale made no remark, but 
left us to find out what the picture meant. Nor had 
I long to look before I understood it — in a measure ai 
least 

It represented a garret-room in a wretchedly ruinous 
condition. The plaster had come away in several 
places, and through between the laths in one spot hung 
the tail of a great rat. In a dark corner lay a man 
dying. A woman sat by his side, with her eyes fixed, 
not on his face, though she held his hand in hers, but 
on the open door, where in the gloom you could just 
see the struggles of two undertaker’s men to get the 
coffin past the turn of the landing toward the door. 
Through the window there was one peep of the blue 
sky, whence a ray of sunlight fell on the one scarlet 
blossom of a geranium in a broken pot on the window- 
sill outside. 

“ I do not wonder you did not like to show it,” ] 
said. “How can you bear to paint such a dreadful 
picture ?” 

“ It is a true one. It only represents a fact” 

“ All facts have not a right to be represented ” 


THE STUDIO. 


6n 


“Surely you would not get rid of painful things b> 
huddling them out of sight?” 

“No-; nor yet by gloating upon them.” 

“You will believe me that it gives me anything but 
pleasure to paint such pictures — as far as the subject 
goes,” he said with some discomposure. 

“ Of course. I know you well enough by this time 
to know that. But no one could hang it on his wall 
who would not either gloat on suffering or grow callous 
to it. Whence then would come the good I cannot 
doubt you propose to yourself as your object in painting 
the picture? If it had come into my possession, I 
would ” 

“ Put it in the fire,” suggested Percivale, with a strange 
smile. 

“No. Still less would I sell it I would hang it up 
with a curtain before it, and only look at it now and 
then when I thought my heart was in danger of growing 
hardened to the sufferings of my fellow-men, and forget- 
ting that they need the Saviour.” 

“ I could nc-t wish it a better fate. That would 
answer my end.” 

“Would it now? Is it not rather those who care 
little or nothing about such matters that you would like 
to influence ? Would you be content with one solitary 
person like me t And, remember, I wouldn't buy it. I 
would rather not have it I could hardly bear to know 
it was in my house. I am certain you cannot do people 
good by showing them o?ily the painful. Make it as 
painful as you will, but put some hope into it, something 


6l2 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


to show that action is woith taking in the affair. From 
mere suffering people will turn away, and you cannot 
blame them. Every sh«w of it without hinting at some 
door of escape, only urges them to forget it all. Why 
should they be pained if it can do no good 1 ” 

“ For the sake of sympathy, I should say,” answered 
Percivale. 

“ They would rejoin, i It is only a picture. Come 
along.* No; give people hope, if you would have them 
act at all — in anything/* 

“I was almost hoping you would read the picture 
rather differently. You see there is a bit of blue sky up 
there, and a bit of sunshiny scarlet in the window.** 

He looked at me curiously as he spoke. 

“ I can read it so for myself, and have metamorphosed 
its meaning so. But you only put in the sky and the 
scarlet to heighten the perplexity and make the other 
look more terrible.*’ 

“ Now I know that as an artist I have succeeded, 
however I may have failed otherwise. I did so mean it. 
But knowing you would dislike the picture, I almost 
hoped, in my cowardice, as I said, that you would read 
your own meaning into it.” 

Wynnie had not said a word. As I turned away from 
the picture, I saw that she was looking quite distressed, 
but whether by the picture, or the freedom with which 
I had remarked upon it, I do not know. My eyes fall- 
ing on a little sketch in sepia, I began to examine it, 
in the hope of finding something more pleasant to say. 
I perceived in a moment, however, that it was nearly 


THE STUDIO. 


613 


the same thought, only treated in a gentler and more 
poetic mode. A girl lay dying on her bed. A youth 
held her hand. A torrent of summer sunshine fell 
through the window, and made a lake of glory upon the 
floor. I turned away. 

“You like that better, don’t you, papa?” said Wvnnie, 
tremulously. 

“It is beautiful, certainly,” I answered. “And if it 
were only one, I should enjoy it — as a mood. But com- 
ing after the other, it seems but the same thing more 
weakly embodied.” 

I confess I was a little vexed. For I had got much 
interested in Percivale, for his own sake, as well as for 
my daughters, and I had expected better things from 
him. But I saw that I had gone too far. 

“ I beg your pardon, Mr Percivale,” I said. “ I fear 
I have been too free in my remarks. I know, likewise, 
that I am a clergyman and not a painter, and therefore 
incapable of giving the praise which I have little doubt 
your art at least deserves.” 

“ I trust that honesty cannot offend me, however much 
and justly it may pain me.” 

“ But now I have said my worst, I should much like 
o see what else you have at hand to show me.” 

“ Unfortunately I have too much at hand. Let me 
see.” 

He strode to the other end of the room where several 
pictures were leaning against the wall with their faces 
turned towards it. From these he chose one, but before 
showing it fitted it into an empty frame that stood be* 


6i 4 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


side. He then brought it forward and set it on the 
easel. I will describe it, and then my reader will under- 
stand the admiration which broke from me after I had 
regarded it for a time. 

A dark hill rose against the evening sky which shone 
through a few thin pines on its top. Along a road on the 
hill-side, four squires bore a dying knight — a man past 
the middle age. One behind carried his helm, and an- 
other led his horse, whose fine head only appeared in the 
picture. The head and countenance of the knight were 
v>ry noble, idling of many a battle, and ever for the 
right. The last had doubtless been gained, for one 
might read victory as well as peace in the dying look. 
The party had just reached the edge of a steep descent, 
from which you saw the valley below, with the last of 
the harvest just being reaped, while the shocks stood all 
about in the fields, under the place of the sunset. The 
sun had been down for some little time. There was on 
gold left in the sky, only a little dull saffron ; but plenty 
of that loveiy liquid green of the autumn sky, divided 
with a few streaks of pale rose. The depth of the sky 
overhead, which you could not see for the arrangement 
of the picture, was mirrored lovelily in a piece of water 
that lay in the centre of the valley. 

“ My dear fellow ! ” I cried, “ why did you not show 
^ me this first, and save me from saying so many unkind 
things 1 Here is a picture to my own heart. It is glori- 
ous. Look here, Wynnie,” I went on. “ You sec it is 
evening. The sun’s work is done, and he has set in 
glory, leaving his good name behind him in a lovelj 


THE STUDIO. 


615 


harmony of colour. The old knight’s work is done too ; 
his day has set in the storm of battle, and he is lying 
lapt in the coming peace. They are bearing him home 
to his couch and his grave. Look at their faces in the 
dusky light. They are all mourning for and honouring 
the life that is ebbing away. But he is gathered to his 
fathers like a shock of corn fully ripe ; and so the harvest 
stands golden in the valley beneath. The picture would 
not be complete, however, if it did not tell us of the 
deep heaven overhead, the symbol of that heaven 
whither he who has done his work is bound: what 
a lovely idea to represent it by means of the water, 
the heaven embodying itself in the earth, as it were, 
that we may see it ! And observe how that dusky 
hillside, and those tall slender mournful-looking pines, 
with that sorrowful sky between, lead the eye and 
point the heart, upward towards that heaven. It is in- 
deed a grand picture — full of feeling — a picture and a 
parable.” * 

I looked at the girl. Her eyes were full of tears— 
either called forth by the picture itself, or by the pleasure 
of finding something of Percivale’s work appreciated by 
me who had spoken so hardly of his other pictures. 

“ I cannot tell you how glad I am that you like it,” she 
laid. 

“ Like it !** I returned. “ I am simply delighted with 
it — more than I can express — so much delighted that 
if I could have this alongside of it, I should not mind 

* This is a description, from memory only, of a picture painted 
by A rthur Hughes. 


6i 6 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


hanging that other, that hopeless garret, on the most 
public wall I have.” 

“ Then,” said Wynnie bravely, though in a tremulous 
voice, “ you confess, don’t you, papa, that you were too 
hard on Mr Percivale at first ?” 

“ Not too hard on his picture, my dear; and that was 
all he had yet given me to judge by. No man should 
paint a picture like that. You are not bound to dis- 
seminate hopelessness ; for where there is no hope, there 
can be no sense of duty.” 

“ But surely, papa, Mr Percivale has sottie sense of 
duty,” said Wynnie, in an almost angry tone. 

“Assuredly, my love. Therefore I argue that he has 
some hope ; and therefore again that he has no right to 
publish such a picture.” 

At the word publish Percivale smiled. But Wynnie 
went on with her defence. 

“ But you see, papa, that Mr Percivale does not paint 
such pictures only. Look at the other.” 

“Yes, my dear. But pictures are not like poems 
lying side by side in the same book, so that the one can 
counteract the other. The one of these might go to the 
stormy Hebrides, and the other to the vale of Avalon, 
But even then, I should be strongly inclined to criticize 
the poem, whatever position it stood in, that had nothing, ; 
positively nothing, of the aurora in it.” 

Here let me interrupt the course of our conversation 
to illustrate it by a remark on a poem which has 
appeared within the last twelvemonth from the pen of 
the greatest living poet, and one who, if I may dare to 


THE STUDIO. 


617 


judge, will continue the greatest for many, many years to 
come. It is only a little song, “ I stood on a tower in 
the wet.” I have found few men who, whether from the 
influence of those prints which are always on the outlook 
for something to ridicule, or from some other cause, did 
not laugh at the poem. I thought and think it a lovely 
poem, although I am not quite sure of the transposition 
of words in the last two lines. But I do not approve of 
the poem, just because there is no hope in it. It lacks 
that touch or hint of red which is as essential, I think, to 
every poem as to every picture — the life-blood — the one 
pure colour. In his hopeful moods, let a man put on 
his singing robes, and chant aloud the words of gladness 
— or of grief, I care not which — to his fellows ; in his 
hours of hopelessness, let him utter his thoughts only to 
his inarticulate violin, or in the evanescent sounds of 
any other stringed instrument ; let him commune with his 
own heart on his bed, and be still ; let him speak to God 
face to face if he may — only he cannot do that and 
continue hopeless ; but let him not sing aloud in such a 
mood into the hearts of his fellows, for he cannot do 
them much good thereby. If it were a fact that there is 
no hope, it would not be a truth . No doubt, if it were 
a fact, it ought to be known ; but who will dare be con- 
fident that there is no hope? Therefore, I say, let the 
hopeless moods, at least, if not the hopeless men, be 
silent 

“ He could refuse to let the one go without the other,” 
Slid Wynnie. 

“ Now you are talking like a child, Wynnie, as indeed 


6i8 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


all partisans do at the best. He might sell them to- 
gether, but the owner would part them. — If you will allow 
me, I will come and see both the pictures again to« 
morrow.” 

Percivale assured me of welcome, and we parted, I 
declining to look at any more pictures that day, but not 
till we had arranged that he should dine with us in the 
evening. 


CHAPTER XLIIL 

HOME AGAIN. 

WILL not detain my readers with the record 
of the few days we spent in London. In writ- 
ing the account of it, as in the experience of 
the time itself, I feel that I am near home, and 
grow the more anxious to reach it. Ah ! I am growing 
a little anxious after another home, too ; for the house 
of my tabernacle is falling to ruins about me. What a 
word home is ! To think that God has made the world 
so that you have only to be born in a certain place, and 
li ». long enough in it to get at the secret of it, and hence- 
forth that place is to you a home with all the wonderful 
meaning in the word. Thus the whole earth is a home 
to the race ; for every spot of it shares in the feeling : 
some one of the family loves it as his home. How rich 
the earth seems when we so regard it — crowded with the 
loves of home 1 Yet I am now getting ready to go home 
— to leave this world of homes, and go home. When 1 



620 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


reach that home, shall I even then seek yet to go home 1 
Even then, I believe, I shall seek a yet warmer, deeper, 
truer home in the deeper knowledge of God — in the truer 
- 7 v - of my fellow-man. Eternity will be, m.y heart and 
aith teil me, a travelling homeward, but in jubilation 
confidence and the vision of the beloved. 

vThen we had laid Connie once more in her own room, 
at least the room which since her illness had come to be 
called hers, I went up to my study. The familiar faces 
of my books welcomed me. I threw myself in my read- 
ing-chair, and gazed around me with pleasure. I felt it 
sc homely here. All my old friends — whom somehow I 
hoped to see some day — present there in the spirit ready 
to talk with me any moment when I was in the mood, 
making no claim upon my attention when I was not ! I 
felt as if I should like, when the hour should come, to 
die in that chair, and pass into the society of the wit- 
nesses in the presence of the tokens they had left behind 
them. 

I heard shouts on the stair, and in rushed the two 
boys. 

“ Papa ! papa 1 *’ they were crying together. 

u What is the matter ? ” 

“We Ve found the big chest just where we left it" 

“Well, did you expect it would have taken itself 
off!" 

" But there *s everything in it just as we left it.” 

“ Were you afraid then that, the moment you left it, it 
would turn itself upside down, and empty itself of all iti 
contents on the floor?* 


HOME AGAIN. 


621 


They laughed, but apparently with no very keen appre 
ciation of the attempt at a joke. 

“ Well, papa, I did not think anything about it ; but— 
but — but — there everything is as we left it." 

With this triumphant answer, they turned and hurried 
a little abashed, out of the room ; but not many moment 
elapsed before the sounds that arose from them were suf 
ficiently reassuring as to the state of their spirits. When 
they were gone, I forgot my books in the attempt to 
penetrate and understand the condition of my boys 
thoughts. And I soon came to see that they were right 
and I was wrong. It was the movement of that unde- 
veloped something in us which makes it possible for us 
in everything to give thanks. It was the wonder of the 
discovery of the existence of law. There was nothing 
that they could understand, a priori , to necessitate the 
remaining of the things where they had left them. No 
doubt there was a reason in the. nature of God, why all 
things should hold together, whence springs the law of 
gravitation, as we call it ; but as far as the boys could 
understand of this, all things might as well have been 
arranged for flying asunder, so that no one could expect 
to find anything where he had left it. I began to see yet 
further into the truth that in everything we must give 
thanks, and whatever is not of faith is sin. Even the 
laws of nature reveal the character of God, not merely as 
regards their ends, but as regards their kind, being of 
necessity fashioned after ideal facts of his own being and 
will. 

I rose and went down to see if everybody was getting 


622 


THE SEABOARD PARISH. 


settled, and how the place looked. I found Ethel 
already going about the house as if she had never left it, 
and as if we all had just returned from a long absence, 
and she had to show us home-hospitality. Wynnie had 
vanished, but I found her by and by in the favourite 
haunt of her mother before her marriage — beside the 
little pond called the Bishop’s Basin, of which I do not 
think I have ever told my readers the legend. But why 
should I mention it, for I cannot tell it now 1 The frost 
lay thick in the hollow when I went down there to find 
her ; the branches, lately clothed with leaves, stood bare 
and icy around her. Ethelwyn and I had almost forgotten 
that there was anything out of the common in connexion 
with the house ; the horror of this mysterious spot had 
laid hold upon Wynnie. I resolved that that night I 
would, in her mother’s presence, tell her all the legend 
of the place, and the whole story of how I won her 
mother. I did so, and I think it made her trust us more. 
But now I left her there, and went to Connie. She lay 
in her bed, for her mother had got her thither at once, a 
perfect picture of blessed comfort. There was no occa- 
sion to be uneasy about her. I was so pleased to be at 
home again with such good hopes that I could not rest, 
but went wandering everywhere, into places even which 
I had not entered for ten years at least, and found fresh 
interest in everything. For this was home, and here I 
was. 

Now I fancy my readers, looking forward to the end, 
and seeing what a small amount of print is left, blaming 
me ; some, that I have roused curiosity without satisfying 


HOME AGAIN. 


623 


it ; others, that I have kept them so long over a dull 
cook and a lame conclusion. But out of a life one can- 
not always cut complete portions, and serve them up : n 
nice shapes. I am well aware that I have not told them 
the fate , as some of them would call it, of either of 
my daughters. This I cannot develop now, even as far as 
it is known to me ; but, if it is any satisfaction to them 
to know this much — and it will be all that some of them 
mean by fate , I fear — I may as well tell them now that 
Wynnie has been Mrs Percivale for many years, with a 
history well worth recounting ; and that Connie has had 
a quiet happy life for nearly as long, as Mrs Turner. 
She has never got strong, but has very tolerable health. 
Her husband watches her with the utmost care and de- 
votion. My Ethelwyn is still with me. Harry is gone 
home. Charlie is a barrister of the Middle Temple. 
And Dora — I must not forget Dora — well, I will say 
nothing about her fate , for good reasons — it is not quite 
determined yet. Meantime she puts up with the society 
of her old father and mother, and is something else than 
unhappy, I fully believe. 

“ And Connie’s baby?” asks some one out of ten 
thousand readers. I have no time to tell you about 
her now ; but as you know her so little it cannot be such 
a trial to remain, for a time at least, unenlightened with 
regard to her fate . 

The only other part of my history which could con- 
tain anything like incident enough to make it interesting 
in print, is a period I spent in London some few years 
after the time of which I have now been writing. But t 


THE SEABOAXj) PARISH. 




am getting too old to regard the commencement oi 
another history with composure. The labour of think- 
ing into sequences, even the bodily labour of writing, 
grows more and more severe. I fancy I can think cor- 
rectly still; but the effort necessary to express myself 
with corresponding correctness becomes, in prospect, at 
least, sometimes almost appalling. I must therefore 
take leave of my patient reader — for surely every one 
who has followed me through all that I have here written, 
well deserves the epithet — as if the probability that I 
shall write no more were a certainty, bidding him fare- 
well with one word: “Friend, hope thou in God,* and 
for a parting gift offering him a new, and, I think, a true 
rendering of the first verse of the eleventh chapter of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews : — 

“ Now faith is the essence of hopes, the trying m 
flings unseen,* 

Good-bye, 





























